French National Championship 2008 Antibes

[trux]

From the last Wednesday to Sunday, there was a national championship in underwater sports in Antibes, France, organized by FFESSM (French branch of CMAS). Besides the classical freediving disciplines static apnea, dynamic apnea with fins, and dynamic apnea without fins, there were 50 m apnea sprint (with start from blocks), and also some other disciplines (some of them apnea related):

• underwater hockey
• underwater target shooting (tir sur cible)
• fin swimming (diverse disciplines from 50 m in pool to 20 km outdoors)
• white-water swimming
• underwater orienteering
• swimming pool UW photography

The most interesting was probably the new French national record of 200 m in DYN by Frédéric Sessa. He won also the DNF discipline with 142 m (this was the first time DNF was on a FFESSM competition, so few athletes trained intensively for this discipline). The victory and the records of Frédéric Sessa were rather surprising, because until now only few freedivers ever heard about him. Although a relative newcomer, he is an ex water polo player, and a spearfisher. He used stiff carbon Breier monofin (there were many Breier monofins and bi-fins on the competition).

The 200 m were expected, but not from Sessa, rather from Mathieu Fabry. Mathieu allegedly does them in training, but after seeing the record taken by Frédéric, he preferred not risking disqualification (any sign of samba would mean 2 months disqualification, and elimination from the team for the CMAS World Championship in Turkey this summer) and did just easy ~190 m (the performance was penalized by some meters for not touching the wall at the start).

There was also a respectable performance of 175 m with bi-fins (also Breier), by Christophe Bruel.

You can find some comments, photos, and results on the forum of Esprit Apnée, and more information about the competition (although no results yet) on the official competition website: championnat antibes 2008

 

[trux]

The French freediving portal Esprit Apnée brought an interesting interview with the winner and the new French record holder Frédéric Sessa:

http://www.espritapnee.com/content/view/104/1/

(that's in French. The English Google translation is not too bad for an automate, so you can check it out: Translated version of http://www.espritapnee.com/content/view/104/1/)

Although the new French record of 200m is not so exceptional in the AIDA world, I think we'll still hear from Fred. He is in fact only learning freediving and the technique. This is his second season in competitive freediving, and he uses monofin only since December 2007! And that's the Breier monofin that is not really quite popular among freedivers. Also, he uses no weights, not even for the 142 m DNF (in a 50 m pool). Do not ask me why. Well, he does not pack either, but still I am sure it would make a difference if he was properly weighted. This photo is allegedly taken just after the start from the wall, but there was an angle during the entire swim anyway.

photo © Esprit Apnée
​

Also his surface protocols in all disciplines were surprisingly clean. Unlike AIDA, FFESSM (officially) does not tolerate any controlled samba during the SP, but frankly told I saw couple of rather apparent LMC's. While newbies are usually immediately disqualified in such case, at "big names" the tolerance was beyond limits (I saw even at least two completely messed up surface protocols been OKed at some of the favorites)

More photos from the competition at http://www.espritapnee.com/galerie/thumbnails.php?album=29

Official results at: http://apnee.ffessm.fr/Competition/2008/ResultsChampsFranceAntibes2008.pdf

 

[Goran Colak]

At first glance I must sad... points for static are everything but fair!!

Frédéric Sossa did some GREAT dynamic swims.

 

[trux]

At first glance I must sad... points for static are everything but fair!!

I agree, but I think the main reason for the low value of points for STA is the fact the the FFESSM championship serves in first place as the qualification for the CMAS world championship. And since there is no static apnea in CMAS competitions, FFESSM under-rated the points, to avoid that someone with excellent STA but mediocre DYN/DNF gets into the representation team.

 

[Goran Colak]

So this was the CMAS competition then? I don't understand... anyway CMAS have no DNF to, not just static... CMAS have only DYN in the pool.. well ther's talk about one new discipline... 100m DYN as fast as posible.

Ps. you mean CMAS European Championship...?

 

[OceanMan]

The name of the french athlete is Frédéric Sessa.

 

[Goran Colak]

One more thing, isn't the 200m CMAS world record??

 

[trux]

Yes, it is Sessa. Sorry, I misspelled it in my second post, although I had it correctly in the first one. It is fixed now.

And yes, 200 m was the CMAS world record already before this competition, but the French national record was shorter.

And yes again, CMAS has currently only the DYN discipline, but if you look at the results of the FFESSM competition, you can see that DNF was handicapped too (by the factor 0.8) - apparently for the same reasons as STA.

And again yes, FFESSM is the French branch of CMAS, so the French national championship is the qualification for both the European Championship later this year in Antalya, Turkey, as well for the next world championships.