1) Seems like Rudi has final say in all records - does seem to be that the trainer in a way has a say in the judging of his athlete. Or?
Rudi does not have a final say in all records. First of all only the judge at the bottom can decide if i made it there and had any underwater violations or not, and the surface judge is the one taking the tag from me and making the final decision, BUT, in those particular cases that you mention, although the tag passed from my hands to the judge's hands before I BO'd, Rudi was totally convinced that it was more a case where the judges TOOK the tag from me rather than receiving it, and this he felt was not what the rules refer to, so he brought this to the judges attention and they agreed that the performances should be invalidated...And after all, Rudi wrote the FREE rules so he knows then better than anybody else, whic is why the judges would consult with him, a very normal thing. I think that as the president of the organization, this shows the level of his integrity very well. That is also why I think Topi particularly wanted Rudi to be one of the FREE judges sent for his 60 meter record, even when Rudi was David's trainer, because Topi was convinced that if he got the record, Rudi would give it to him, plain and simple. There was never a doubt or a question about other "loyalties" coming into place, and frankly Sebastian, I am surprised to hear you say that because you spent almost a month with us so you should know very well the way we do things, and if I am not mistaken, you were there to witness one of those attempts where I got disqualified...All this says a lot about the integrity and strictness with which FREE applies its rules. But then, for those who don't know this, even if the judges accept a record at FREE, the athlete has the right to request the record not be accepted, which is what both Rudi and I would have done under those conditions had we been given the record...
(2) Why where Yasemins two records deemed invalid when she BOd AFTER handing over the tag. Does it not say in the FREE rules that it is enough to do the dive and deliver the tag?
Does not FREE believe in their own rules? )
I already have answered part of your question above. A judge must come close enough to the diver after the surfacing so that the athelte does not need to swim and get exhausted to deliver the tag, but what a judge cannot do is TAKE the tag from the diver, the diver must deliver the tag to the judge completely in control, and obviously, I was not in control of myself at that time. I don't think the judges were trying to "cheat" but simply that they were trying to do their job in the quickest and most effective way and this where they actually sort of went against the rules. One of those judges was explained the differences and he understood, while the other one (Makula) insisted that this was a good performance and because of those unfixable differences in mentality he was taken off the judges' list. I hope this point is clear enough...and obviously, this should show that FREE believes in its rules but that they are convinced that rules can also be misinterpreted and that's what Rudi was trying to avoid.
3) Aida does not allow LMC. How much deeper can you swim if you are allowed to push yourself closer to the LMC state (like FREE does)?
(In static my opnion is that it is about 10-20 seconds)
If we start talking about this again, we will never finish, and in the end, it doesn't matter much what you or I think. You are obviously a believer in the AIDA system and I believe in the FREE system, which is why we do our diving under those organizations. Whether you agree with the FREE system or not, you should at least understand it, because as I remember you and Rudi spent hours and hours discussing all those things back in Greece. For one last time, AIDA does not "allow" LMC but by doing that they have disqualified many, many, many people that had just finished totally acceptable performances and it is impossible for any judge to agree on what's over the limit and what is not, so that's how AIDA judges performances and I believe it is far from being a fair way of going about it. What FREE does is allow LMC or whatever else as long as the diver can complete a set of actions, like delivering the tag to the judge, at the end of the dive as long as the diver does this in complete control and never sinks below the surface, and in my opinion this is amuch more logical and fair way to judge am performance, especially things like world records where we are supposed to be right at the edge, but again, these things are all well known and you simply need to choose which one makes more sense to you and that's it...If you look at it, what FREE does is similar to the way sports like trach and field, swimming, and many more are judged, where the performance is measured from a "start" to the "finish" and what happens afterwards is irrelevant, and what AIDA does is more like ice skating or gymnastics, where points are given for beauty and style...you decide which one is more suitable for a sport like ours and then go with it, plain and simple...
Regards,
Yasemin Dalkilic
