Freediving in the Olympics? Yes/no, how?

[pingshui]

I think there are two extremes of freediving: a) the spiritual approach and b) the sports approach. I assume that, like in a typical bells curve, most people are somewhere in between. For the others I guess a) will not want to ruin the experience of freediving, sees it as a mind-set and personal way of life and does not want it to become main stream. On the other extreme b) is interested in the challenge and competition, thus preferring it to become olympic and receiving greater recognition of what they achieve.
I feel that both could exist at the same time, both are legitimate, it's just different communities.

I would rather tend towards b) as a professionalization of freediving would give me better opportunities to train, better coaches and a safer environment for training. Finally I would also have the hope that, if freediving became olympic, the sport would be taken more seriously and not be labeled as a stunt show anymore.

 

[deepRelax]

Though it is unlikely to get any apnea into the olympics, by far the best bet would be to invoke the clause of returning a prior olympic sport. Since apnea swimming was an olympic sport around 1908 (?), I would invoke the clause to return a previous sport back into the olympics. Much easier than bringing in a new sport.

Hi,
According to Wikipedia Swimming at the 1900 Summer Olympics, it was at the 1900 summer Olypics in Paris.

 

[Azrael3000]

So with a 3:30 static you could have won a gold medal back in 1900. Definitely live in the wrong century

 

[Haydn]

I have the feeling the public would prefer to see some blackouts. Much like in watching the stunt bikes doing massive jumps and letting go the bikes in mid air, we are all more interested in the crash, more than the air. Similar with surfing. It would probably be very boring otherwise, especially if the freedivers announced their depths first. Everyopne already knows who is going to win as long as they come up clean. On the other hand, if a depth was kept secret, everyone will be interested. If freediving had no base plate, no tag to fetch, just a depth and you turn around when you judge it best.

 

[Kars]

I agree with Haydn, the athlete should have no baseplate to focus on. Just his mind and feelings to determine when to turn, much like Sebastian Naslund's UFC format.

I like the UFC because it's so pure, so down to the athlete, it looks great and is easy to identify with. Especially when a Brave Pretty Danish women with lot's of class and style goes down the line, followed by two camera men. Then all of a sudden she hits the Swedish thermocline of the fjord, and is jerked out of her flow making cute sounds of equalising agony priceless!

I wonder What William Trubridge's UFC pb record is?

What's the current UFC WR?

 

[growingupninja]

I have the feeling the public would prefer to see some blackouts. Much like in watching the stunt bikes doing massive jumps and letting go the bikes in mid air, we are all more interested in the crash, more than the air. Similar with surfing. It would probably be very boring otherwise, especially if the freedivers announced their depths first. Everyopne already knows who is going to win as long as they come up clean. On the other hand, if a depth was kept secret, everyone will be interested. If freediving had no base plate, no tag to fetch, just a depth and you turn around when you judge it best.

Yes, unfortunately I agree. Look at what ends up on boxing clips and car racing clips--fiery crashes, knock-outs, and spectacular injuries.

I honestly think one of the real hold-ups to freediving acceptance is that it is non-commercial almost by nature. I swam growing up and I realized as a teenager that nobody cared about swimming in large part because there was no marketing behind it. Athletic shoe companies don't spend billions of dollars glamorizing it. No shoes or clothing can be sold--unlike basketball, baseball, etc, etc.... Kids are not bombarded with images of swimmers. It is quite frankly not the most exciting thing to watch; you can't see much of the athlete. That's why adverts that feature swimming mostly have swimmers on the blocks or swimmers breathing on a butterfly stroke. It doesn't require any gear to speak of.

As for freediving, underwater photography has come a LONG WAY since then, but it is still very difficult to capture on film/video and usually takes another freediver to do it, and in most countries with international, cultural clout (developed nations), there is not an excess of water that is beautiful to photograph.

 

[Mullins]

I agree with Haydn, the athlete should have no baseplate to focus on. Just his mind and feelings to determine when to turn,

There's a recipe for disaster if ever there was one. No comp fatalities yet, but there probably would be if you tried that.

 

[Kars]

Dave, there is a baseplate but it hangs deep, or moves down with the athlete. Or it may hang 10% deeper then the athlete's pb. They still have lanyards, and motorised counterweight system.

In the experience of Nordic Deep many people were able to hit 30m within 2m, just by sensing time feeling depth etc. Personally i turned within 1 meter of 30m a couple of times.

Surely being narced makes it much more difficult to feel the depth, sense the dive-time, etc, but not impossible. More of a challenge.

 

[Mullins]

Judging 30m is nothing at all like judging depth on a deep CWT dive. I'd find it very difficult to tell 115m from 125m. You'd have people getting narked and blowing way past their PBs, then blacking out at 50m on the ascent. Look at what happened to Wal on his VWT dive.

For the divers, it'd be a total gamble. Winning and losing would be decided more by luck than by diving ability. Having clear markings would be ok, but still somewhat riskier than our current setup.

 

[Kars]

Ok, would a dive computer alarm do? you can set it at your chosen depth. And decide a before or on the moment to drop just a bit deeper.

From what depth would you say judging depth without tools is impossible?

Off cause many modern freediver improvements, suits, fluid goggles, weights, noseclips, monofins make the diver look rather alien from the regular pool going folk. So I like the no suit, no fins and noseclip only approach. I think it would attract many viewers. And bathing suit companies sponsoring the athletes.

 

[Mullins]

If I was a spectator watching a CWT dive I think I'd want to know how deep the competitor was. Otherwise they'd all look the same and you couldn't tell a good dive from a lousy one. There would be zero interest until the results were announced. It'd be like watching a swimming race as a staggered time-trial and only finding out who went fastest when three of them stepped up on the podium.