Freediving Competition Setup

[Jorg]

I'm planning to organise another big pool freediving competition. After talking to several freedivers during the championships prefered date would be around end of march, so that's possible. What would you like to see? What kind of setup?

Something like a one day setup with static and dynamic with or without fins. Maybe two day? First day dynamic with fins, 2nd day static and dynamic without or only static?
Or the setup like in Renens? 3 days of freediving, in the morning the series, in the evening the finals, including B finals (so that the best 16 can go again?)
What should be the last day of the competition? Saturday or Sunday?
Do you want continues music? ..........................

Place of competition will be Eindhoven, very good reachable through Amsterdam or Eindhoven airport.

Just give me your ideas. As organiser I try to listen to your ideas.... What are you missing? What do you like to see? What makes it interesting for the public?

 

[SanSan]

Hey Jorg

We are also planning to organise a competition in march in Slovenia.

I like the 2 day option best with all disciplines. Training on thursday, DYN on friday, STA and DNF next day. And a big party afterwards .

 

[Jorg]

I guess the party is as much part of the competition as doing the disciplines... It's always nice to see the people unload all the stress of doing a competition. I was indeed thinking on doing the last day on Saturday, so we can have a nice part on saturday evening and people have sunday to go back to home.

 

[cebaztian]

Two sleep over nights.

- Day one late start DNF (so we can travel, compete and then sleep of the lactic)
- Day two Satic in the morning - som fun competition in the afternoon (teamstaticRelay)
- Day three early start DYN (so we can use all day to travel back home).

Overall winner DYN-DNF-STA (more points for DNF).

Sebastian

 

[Veronika]

Hi Jorg,

guess you'll get as many suggestions as people posting ...
Anyway, here come my personal "that would be great"s :

A training day before the competition (try out pool temperature, get the stuff together etc.) would be very nice. For the comp itself I'd love to have STA first. I don't know if this is scientifically reasonable or not, but I am not fond of the idea of doing an exhausting Dynamic with heaps of lactic acid buildup before doing the statics part . But I guess with 3disciplines you always have that problem at some point.
Apart from that, both one or more days sounds fine to me. If it's one day, I think it would be better to have the classic either DYN or DNF. If it's more than one day, it should also be taken into consideration that a lot of people will have to take the days off that are not Saturdays / Sundays. So perhaps, if it's all 3 disciplines, a one-plus-two day competition could be a good compromise: 1st day travelling in the morning + training in the afternoon, 2nd day STA + DNF, 3rd day DYN + party, day after: travelling back home ? If the first day is Thurstay, it's just 1,5 / 2 days you have to take off from work but you still would have plenty of time for the comp.
In any case, I would not use the preliminaries / finals-system. For the worlds it was ok because the whole week was dedicated to freediving anyway, so it simply didn't matter if you dived or were just hanging around chatting , but apart from these really _huge_ competitions, IMHO it costs a lot of time and involves a lot of effort for everyone involved.

Just my 2cc worth.

All the best,

Veronika

P.S.: Almost forgot: I would be just perfect if you could you publish the date of the comp as soon as it is fixed. Its easier to get cheap flights when there are still some months in between. Thanks !

 

[Jorg]

Thanks for the input. If the competition will go through I'll let everyone before the end of this month.

 

[wolleneugebauer]

don`t forget:
8th Night of Apnea
19th November 2005 Berlin -Germany (start 4:00 pm)
STA/DYN/DNF (50m-pool) and 16x50m Speeddiving!
Individual National with Guests (aida-ranking)
http://www.aida-deutschland.de/wettkampf/nda112005/eng_Ausschreibung_Anmeldung_NDA2005.pdf

and

Rhein-Main-Cup
29th of October 2005 Wiesbaden-Germany (start 9:00 am)
STA/DYN/DNF (25m-pool)
Individual National with Guests or National Open (aida-ranking)
http://www.tauchclub-wiesbaden.de/RMCAusschreibung engl.htm

 

[Tanya S]

Hi y'all,

This may be slightly off the subject but I think it is relevant. I would like to see more local, national and international media involved or attending in competitions. I always come away from comps with a feeling that there was a great opportunity wasted ( and it's only my opinion ) . Take Lausanne and Nice for instance, 3 world records and apart from a small amount of local news the world did not have a clue what went on and that anything exceptional took place. Now I know that most of the freedivers out there could care less about media, but for those who organise events and competitions it is the life blood to obtaining sponsorship which allows the comps to take place. So without sponsors there are no comps which affects all in the sport.

Now I am not sure what the answer is but I think that more could be done. What I am sure about is that getting media coverage is more difficult than putting on any comp or event and takes a hell of a lot of time.

Best to all

Paul Streeter

 

[Walrus]

Um Paul,
there were 5 world records, not 3 ?!
Carlos 1
Natalia 4 !

Just worked out that Natalia has set the most WR's out of all the women so far. 7 in total, think they were all done in comp, not %100 sure about the ones in moscow, thought it was a comp.




Cheers,
Wal

 

[cebaztian]

Actually - media coverage is not that hard to get.

Media nowadays is mostly about money. So if you can GIVE GOOD material for FREE IN TIME (same day) to the editor in charge that day (with a suggested angle to it). Chances are good to be part of that days news.

Me as an UW videographer/journalist NEVER give things for free since it is my work.

The solution is that you freedivers that have sponsordeals, must use some of that money (?) and pay for a person that can make the right local connections and deliver good material to the media (this person is usually a freelance journalist). Editors like to feel like they are not manipulated so it takes some cunning to lure them ;-)

And also; Sporteditors are reluctant in reporting on freediving as a SPORT, they tend to go for the lifestyle angle.

Sebastian

 

[Stephan Whelan]

Traditionally organisers of these comps have tried to provide media coverage themselves and shy away from working with dedicated journalists who want to cover the competitions.

The idea is to make it EASY for journalists to cover the story. Either pay for them to get there or have an onsite journalist co-ordinator that can feed the media info (that they have setup in advance).

Previous big competitions have made it very hard and expensive for journalists to cover the competitions. I know from experience as every major competition we have provided online coverage for has cost us a lot of money. Whilst we have been willing to spend money to help cover the sport in the past major news organisations just won't be willing to.

Even worse, some past competitions have stipulated that journalists and media have to give the competition organisers their copy and footage for free so that the organisers can then resell them themselves!

Some world records attempts do "get" the idea that they need to budget for journalists and they are the one's that get the most amount of coverage.

 

[cebaztian]

FYI
The Hawaii world cup cost me some 200 USD to attend as a journalist. Got myself a place on the boat for that.

Sebastian

 

[Frederic Buyle]

Major problem, coverage and media during freediving competitions...

Organizers seems more and more aware that they need coverage but not all of them are doing the right things to make it happen.

Idealy, the organizers should pay some cameramen and photographers to cover the event and then give the material to medias for free. (that's how it works on major record attempts or competitons like the static contest we did in Monaco and of course, in all major sports). When you proceed like that, the coverage is big, sponsors are happy and it's attracting more for the next one etc.

I was covering both world championships this year.
The deal was that I was giving the organizers images for their internal usage and local newspapers and the low resolutions images were avaible for everyone.
For mags and hi resolution images, people have to pay. Fair enough, it's my job (well one of my jobs...), like Sebastian was saying. By the way, I haven't even coverd my expenses yet.

It's always funny to see that the people who are complaining because they have to pay for pictures and footages or are not interseted in buying pictures are the same who are complaining because they can't find sponsors....!!!!

To get sponsorship, first, you have to bring something to your sponsor. it's the basic rule. And bringing something doesn't mean a world record or equivalent, but a good media strategy and material that they can use to promote what they have to promote (a product, a concept, values etc)

The game is to be able to sell freediving.

If you do it propely, you have good sponsors and you are able to do things, even if you don't do world records etc. The opposite is the best proof: some amazing freedivers full of world records have no sponsors at all. Nobody cares about someone only diving along a rope, speaking about extreme equalization and training 8h a day in gym and pool to be the best. Wake up all.
It's in my opinion why freediving remain marginal and not enough covered by major medias.

The athletes who have good sponsors have them because they have added value. Most of them will even keep their sponsors after they stop competing.


The other way is to dive for yourself, with friends, do records dephts etc. But then, don't ask for the butter and the money from the butter and the smile of the girl who sells you the butter... (french expression litteraly tranaslated by a belgian guy)

Fred

 

[Haydn]

Publicity. You just have to make it happen, its easy and its free. A couple years ago I set the first UK dynamic record (a reasonable 139m). Within 3 days of telling the TV, I had them film, interview and present 20 minutes of prime time broadcasting. Including 5 minutes LIVE for GMTV. Altogether 4 TV stations covered the story and these reports were repeated. Further radio, magazine and newspapers coverage followed. Including a report and colour photo wearing my monofin in the Times newspaper alongside a smaller photo of David Beckham showing off the new England strip.

Remember Lee Donnely on a TV quiz show holding his breath in a glass tank?

The media are hungry for coverage of our very newsworthy sport because the stories have not yet been told. Just do something and tell them what you've done, they will then cover it, guaranteed.
And you dont have to be the best, I'm proof of that. Just give them the story, dont sell it.

 

[Haydn]

Forgot.... Hannah Stacey being voted freediver of the year and getting TV interview. Do you know of other TV reports?

 

[samdive]

Hannah works in the BBC... which helps!

Last time I talked to a magazine about freediving, I got the response "tell us about it when someone dies, our readers love reading about deaths"

mmm

then again, when they have a bit of a dry month they will publish pretty much anything - send a good well written story and fab photos and you have a good chance of it appearing... I have had lots of good coverage of the Mermaid Challenge for example.

S

 

[Jorg]

Okay, publicity is important, a lot.... But again back to the more general question: How about the competition setup in the pool???

 

[Manuel]

http://www.freedivecanada.com/comp/manual/index.html

MANUEL