Freediving in the Olympics?

[laminar]

Hi everyone,

I was an Olympics addict for the first time in years and now I'm feeling the hardship of cold turkey.

What are your thoughts on Freediving as an Olympic sport?
Is it a good idea? Would it be a good fit along with skeet shooting, lawn bowling, and speedwalking? (sorry, if I offend anyone)

Is the solution for making it viable a complex system of cameras, commentators review the competitors dives over the last few years, judging his or her ability to cope with the stress of freediving in the Olympics, commenting on the controversy caused by the impact of Olympic freediving on public water safety-just like commentators in any sport. How about secret target depths? The audience tries to guess how deep the diver will go and the tension of survival is heightened?

Or does the sport need to evolve beyond the "grab a tag and survive" routine? Maybe underwater biathlon is more interesting: dive to 60m and shoot 5 targets with a speargun or perform some other task?

Or perhaps freediving needs some marks for artistic merit. A true underwater ballet. Judging scandals galore! The pairs competition, or a dozen freedivers attempting to achieve beautiful forms underwater for as long as possible as a team without losing consciousness.

Thoughts? Flights of fancy?

Still revelling in the Olympic spirirt,

Pete

 

[Erik]

Anderson, you are a card, and should be dealt with. LOL.
Underwater ballet? God no....then we WOULD be included with such things as ballroom dancing:head , figure skating , and the Betty Crocker Baking Championships. I love art and music: I played professionally for 28 years, but don't think that anything that has subjectivity and "judging" should be considered a sport. I don't mean judging in the sense of a trained observer, I mean like the French figure-skating judge, oui, mon ami? Hopefully, AIDA will remove the ridiculous "samba" rule, thereby eliminating all that BS that exists in the sport now.
Watching people BO at a competition will not influence kids to go and Bo if they are explained the reality of a competitive environment. This is usually the excuse I hear from AIDA about sambas: that people will go out and start Blacking out en masse, because they saw a freediver do it in competition.
There are always dolts that will do doltish things: here are two examples. 1. The 3 stooges were not seen in Canada for many years, because some kid watched Mo put a screwdriver in Curly's ear, then tried it on his brother:duh
2. After your talk of ear-candling (another ear story), I went to my local shop, where I was told that I could no longer buy ear candles in Canada, I would have to go to a "Trained Specialist", because some idiot burned himself, then undoubtedly sued somebody. Unbelievable. These people are at the low end of the gene pool, and shouldn't be paid any attention to. They should be allowed to work themselves out of the gene pool, like people who don't wear helmets on bikes, etc. No offence meant, it's simple math.
ummmm......ok, I know I've drifted off topic, but I wanted to tell the ear-candling thing for the last two weeks, sorry.
Anyway, the idea of underwater biathalon sounds awesome. maybe just 30 metres, and 3 shots?
I'm all for SPORTS in the Olympics, where the scores are clear and defined, where no-one can say, "well, I THINK she went over the finish line first, so she gets the gold."
End of 5-knot-drifting rant.
Cheers,
Erik Y.

 

[andrsn]

pardon moi, monsieur, yhoo do not tink dat aye ahm a cahrd, noh? c'est faux, c'est faux!

olympics including freediving...hmmm....

how about chess at the bottom of a diving well. each team has about 5 people, you get one breath per move, then it's back up and the next guy's turn. kinda tricky, eh? seems like it'd be a quick game of chess.

or how about on your ideas. have a dynamic relays but have to shoot at a target at the other end(deep end) and then have to swim all the way back. tag your partner, then he/she's off?

peter... and i thought i was bored.

adieu mes amis,
andrés

 

[laminar]

bored?

Canadian Olympic hockey manic, ice four feet thick over all lakes in the Yukon, eternal darkness....yes, I am bored.

I was joking about freediving for artistic impression. But I think it would be great to work out new things to do for friendly and safe competition, combining skill and freediving ability.

What about an underwater slalom course, get to the bottom, okay -30m, and then shoot targets and then sprint to the surface.

I once sprinted down to -30m and back in forty seconds. Equalizing on the fly is a difficult thing to do sometimes, especially head down.

Heck, maybe we should all meet up for a week and go out and make up new freediving events.

Keep the ideas coming!

(if it's not clear that I'm bored, then I'm not speaking English)

Pete

 

[Erik]

How about like paintball, but with spearguns, helmets, and kevlar wetsuits:head
Erik Y.

 

[SASpearo]

Gey Soos !!

Might just get mightily interesting.

Underwater Paintball (maybe call it 'paintspear'??)
Underwater Relay
Underwater sprints (depth / distance)
Depth comp (all categories)
Target shooting at depth
Skeet shooting (Shoot a moving target) MMMmmmm idea forming ...
Underwater chess


I've played black jack and poker underwater before ... against scuba dudes in a dive tank (yeah the one next to the coffee shop)

What about weight lifting? Dive 30m deep and then pick up and take to the surface a 50kg weight .... he he he kinda like spearing actually!

 

[Observer]

Golf?

How about underwater golf? You set up a "course" on the bottom with fluorescent colored lines forming lanes. The player starts in a "tee" area and does a dynamic apnea for as far as they can go, and at the end drop a bright colored weight into the course. For their next "stroke," they have to dive down and retrieve the weight. For the next one, they do another dynamic and drop the weight at the end again. Then they go back down and get it... this cycle repeats until you reach the "green" area of the course (perhaps you rename it "blue"). Once there, you "putt" by doing a dive where you go and get the weight, then swim it over to a "hole" in the same dive if you can, or at least as close as you can get it. The number of dives is your number of strokes, and the player with the fewest wins.

Current and visibility become natural hazards just as wind is in a normal golf course. And this sport even has a built-in joke about the whole course being one big water hazard.

 

[fjohnson]

laminar posted earlier:

"Maybe underwater biathlon is more interesting: dive to 60m and shoot 5 targets with a speargun or perform some other task?"

This one sounds good..Underwater Biathlon ... I like that. tough enough that you'd have to be an olympian to carry it out. Reloading and shooting 5 times would be tough I think, as if getting to 60 meters isn't?

This really has me thinking about some games that might be fun to play this summer involving freediving. Maybe get some of the kids more interested.

Fred

 

[freediverdude]

Blackjack and Poker

Hey SAS,
Were you freediving while they were on scuba playing those games? Did it still seem fair? Although you probably were able to go several minutes with them at a time...

 

[SASpearo]

Dive shop ...

I was in a pair of baggies and a mask. Nothing else.

They on the other hand, were doing refresher courses etc, so they were in full scuba kit. I could play two hands of poker before my air ran out - we weren't really concentrating on the game though ... and I suck at poker. It was an absolute gas ...

 

[freediverdude]

poker

SAS,

Wow, cool! I would think a hand would last a long time though with the asking for more cards and the betting and stuff, were they long hands?

 

[SASpearo]

Naah

2 games would run between 2 minutes and 2 and a half minutes. Like I said, I suck at poker. Besides, if I needed air I just folded

 

[freediverdude]

Poker

Hey Sas,

When are you usually online? I keep lookin for ya, cause I would like to chat with you about different games that could be played underwater, because you have such a good imagination, and some experience with it.
Nick

 

[SASpearo]

Grin ....

From about 5:00 GMT to about 14:00 GMT

Mail me at RCoetzee@idion.com

 

[freediverdude]

Grin...

SAS,

GMT is the same as London isn't it? That means you're on from 5 am London time to 2pm London time, which is the same as 12 midnight my time to 9 am my time...geez, no wonder i never see you! How about on the weekends? I could stay up past midnight on the weekends if you're up that early. A lot of times I am up til 2 or 3 am my time on the weekend nights, which would be 7 or 8 am there, or if you happen to be on in the evenings on the weekends I would be there also.
Nick