ICARE Trophies 2009

[trux]

</SPAN>I know that the ICARE trophies have no big significance, but the nominations for the awards for the year 2009 were announced. And you can vote.

However, there seem to be some problems, because there are two different lists online, and each of them is quite different, so it is unclear which one people should use for voting. Additionally, in one of the list I found my name listed in the category "the best captain/coach 2009" which is ridiculous, because not only I'd be a miserable captain/coach, but mainly I have never been one. It is unclear to me how I landed there. I asked the organizers to pull me out. However, I guess that this list is some preliminary version that got published by mistake, and in fact the other list is correct.

So there are the two lists here:

The first one comes from http://www.immersion-profonde.ch/crbst_12.html


BEST FEMALE FREEDIVER 2009

• Sara CAMPBELL, United Kingdom
• Kathryn McPHEE, New Zealand
• Natalia MOLCHANOVA, Russia
• Jana STRAIN, Canada

BEST MALE FREEDIVER 2009

• Alexey MOLCHANOV, Russia
• Dave MULLINS, New Zealand
• Martin STEPANEK, Czech Republic
• William TRUEBRIDGE, New Zealand

BEST FEMALE REVELATION 2009

• Lidija LIJIC, Croatia
• Maria Livbjerg, Denmark
• Susy OSLER, New Zealand
• Saana PARTINEN, Finland

BEST MALE REVELATION 2009

• Goran COLAK, Croatia
• Jorénik EKSTRÖM, Finland
• Bjarte NYGARD, Norway
• Martin PETRISKO, Czech Repuplic

BEST NATIONAL INSTITUTION 2009

• AIDA Croatia, Croatia
• AIDA New Zealand
• Dansk Fridykkerforbund (AIDA Denmark), Denmark
• Freediving Team of Finland (AIDA Finland), Finland

BEST CAPTAIN/COACH 2009

• Kerian HIBBS, New Zealand
• Grégory PIAZZOLA, France
• Bill STRÖMBERG, Sweden
• Ivo TRUXA, Czech Republic (hm, I have never been one!)

BEST INTERNATIONAL JUDGE 2009

• Melita ADANY, Croatiaa
• Peter BOJOVIC, Serbia
• Grant GRAVES, USA
• Kimmo LAHTINEN, Finland

And the other one is from this page:

immersion-profonde.ch
I guess it is the right one.

Best Female Freediver 2009

• Sara CAMPBELL
• Elisabeth KRISTOFFERSEN
• Lidija LIJIC
• Kathryn McPHEE
• Karoline MEYER
• Natalia MOLCHANOVA
• Martin STEPANEK (hm, I did not know Martin was a transsexual)
• Jana STRAIN

Best Male Freediver 2009

• Guy BREW
• Carlos COSTE
• Ulf DEXTEGEN
• Timo KINNUNEN
• Federico MANA
• Stéphane MIFSUD
• Alexey MOLCHANOV
• Dave MULLINS
• Herbert NITSCH
• William TRUBRIDGE

Best Female Revelation 2009

• Anako HIROSE
• Lidija LIJIC
• Maria LIVBJERG
• Suzy OSLER
• Saana PARTINEN
• Jana SKROBOVA
• Alessia ZECCHINI

Best Male Revelation 2009

• Goran COLAK
• Jorénik EKSTRÖM
• Katsuya HAMAZAKI
• Bjarte NYGARD
• Martin PETRISKO
• Frédéric SESSA

Best National Institution 2009

• AIDA Croatia
• AIDA Italia
• AIDA Finland
• AIDA France
• AIDA New Zealand
• AIDA Sweden
• Dansk Fridykkerforbund - AIDA Denmark

Best Captain/Coach 2009

• Ricardo BRANCO
• Kerian HIBBS
• Patrick MUSIMU
• Bill STRÖMBERG

Best International Judge 2009

• Melita ADANY
• Jonas ANDERSSON
• Peter BOJOVIC
• Grant GRAVES
• Kimmo LAHTINEN

Special ICARE Trophy 2009
(prices of the Jury for special situations/circumstances/persons)

• Apnea Academy, for its global work for freediving
• Stavros KASTRINAKIS, for his work for freediving and AIDA as organizer and safety freediver manager

I wrote the organizer about the problem, but am posting about it publicly here to avoid that people start voting before it is get sorted out which of the list is correct. Anyway, there are apparently problems in both of them.

 

[Mullins]

Well if you can be the best coach in the world without ever being one, imagine how good you could be if did take it up!

Strange to see my name up there too, I hardly did anything this year.

 

[Will]

Strange to see my name up there too, I hardly did anything this year.

You grew a beard Dave - that's something!

 

[Walrus]

Guy Brew won the world championships in both Dynamic and Static, 2 gold medals in probably the toughest competition of the year. Where is his name on the list ?

 

[Walrus]

Guy Brew won the world championships in both Dynamic and Static, 2 gold medals in probably the toughest competition of the year. Where is his name on the list ?

Woops, sorry he is on the second list, I just had to check, the second list did not make it to the AIDA assembly. So the vast majority would be voting on the 1st list.....

 

[Jorg]

The first list was the list that was emailed to everybody by the organizers themselves. So, how strange it may be, the first list is for now the correct one.

 

[trux]

Strange to see my name up there too, I hardly did anything this year.

Yes, it is true that 234m DNF is such a miserable performance, that it is better not speaking about it. I'd be ashamed of it too.

The first list was the list that was emailed to everybody by the organizers themselves. So, how strange it may be, the first list is for now the correct one.

Hmm, very strange. Well, I can still understand that someone mistook me for a coach in Aarhus, because I do not really have the age or physics of an athlete, but why they considered I was a good one, that is a mystery to me. But why they did not list Guy Brew is even a bigger one. On my mind, if someone really deserves the trophy, then it is Guy.

Should someone vote for me, I'll give my votes to Martin Zajac (although not listed), who indeed is an excellent coach - he not only coached the Slovak team at the WC, but he trains and coached also part of the Czech team (Martin Petrisko and Jana Skrobova). And it was also thanks to him that our both teams were like a single one, everyone in it helping each other. Besides it, he is a university graduated professional sport trainer, apnea instructor, and excellent freediver too (he did two B finals in Aarhus). Besides the medal of Martin Petrisko, three final positions of Jana Skrobova, I have to mention another his great success - Veronika Szalontayová who finished 10th in statics in Aarhus just 3 weeks after she very first time got familiar with freediving on Martin's Apnea Academy freediving course. More about Martin, his team, and courses on his website Apneaman.cz.

 

[cebaztian]

There are some prices which main purpose are not to put the spotligt on the winners, but to get attention to the one giving the prize.

Volvo ocean race - is much about promoting a certain car. For instance.

I dont know if the people behind ICARE, care about freediving, so much that they actually want to take a few minutes and verify the accuracy of a nomination, or think out a system of voting that is not based on "who has the most friends", or who is the nicest guy".
One might also think it is a good idea to actually inform winners that they won in a somewhat ceremonial way. That would be nice, since they do not even get a TROPHY.

Freediving needs this kind of prize, but it can be handled much better. With more CARE, one can say.

Sebastian

 

[trux]

Sorry for the off-topic comment, but I've received some questions about the 232m DNF of Dave (sorry, not 234m as I wrote previously) - apparently he is so modest, that nobody except of handful of Kiwis know about it. Right, it has "only" a national record status, because it was done in a local competition without WR status, but still we know freedivers who claimed their national records for WR even if they were not even the best performances ever recorded (i.e. Mifsud's 213m DYN French NR was claimed to be a WR, while Tom Sietas in that time already held another NR with 214m). 232m DNF is clearly the best DNF performance ever.

More about the swim here: http://forums.deeperblue.com/general-freediving/83519-monster-new-kiwi-records.html

 

[Mullins]

We didn't want to make too much of a song and dance about it because strictly speaking NRs and WRs aren't comparable - and similarly, I wouldn't want to compare it to the WC performances. I haven't seen the video but Chris has it, so I'll put it up on youtube when he gets back from the Bahamas. I actually slowed down and backed off my streamlining quite a bit in order to relax, so apparently it looks quite sloppy!

Anyway, 1 big pool swim is nothing compared with what Will, Guy, Herbert and Martin have done this year so ICARE sound strangely out of touch. Pity, because their award system could become quite a big, positive thing for the sport. It would encourage divers to compete across more disciplines - if they cared.

 

[rxcnc2]

<I>Circulation of the final results and allocation of awards will be done between December 15th and 25th each year.</I>
Any news about the results?

 

[bubbleless]

I see that the results are published now:

http://www.immersion-profonde.ch/crbst_12.html#anchor-top

gotta scroll down a little bit

 

[Aber]

When Herbert Nitsch is absent from the final results and Natalia Molchanova is ranked behind Sara Campbell this year, this award cannot be considered as more than a joke (at best), maybe even an insult to people with a serious interest in freediving. And polls like this should be held well after the freediving season is finished. When an award is handled like this, it does not promote the sport of freediving in a good and serious way. As Sebastian noted in an earlier post in this thread, it should be handled with more care.

 

[trux]

Freedivers are listed alphabetically in all sections of the ICARE nomination list, so it is normal that Natalia is listed below Sara. That's the last thing I'd criticise.

BTW, Jorg announced another award at Shark Freediving, and needs some help with organizing it, so if you do not like ICARE Award, go ahead and offer your help to Jorg.

 

[Aber]

Trux, I am not referring to the nominations but to the results, which are quite odd considering what the divers have actually achieved this year. Don't you agree?

http://www.immersion-profonde.ch/crbst_12.html#anchor-top

 

[trux]

Well, in that case you cannot really blame the organizer - the award is based on public poll, so the results just show how many people voted for who. It does not reflect any achievements, but rather the popularity of the nominees (among those who cared to vote)

BTW: I am surprised, that I still figure on the list, despite that I wrote to the organizers that I have never been a captain or coach. In fact I consider it a bigger problem than the percentage of votes for individual nomninees. People usually understand that such awards often do not reflect real achievements, but having already wrong people on the list of nominees is something that should not happen.

 

[Aber]

People usually understand that such awards often do not reflect real achievements.
Trux

What is the point with such an award, then?

They could at least have made their nominations after the most important competition of the year.

Otherwise I think Sebastian has said what is to say about this award (see his post # 9 on this thread).

 

[rxcnc2]

btw, what is exactly the definition of "best revelation 2009"? I see names there which have been in competitive freediving for years.
I think ICARE is a great initiative in principle, and I hope the organizers take some steps to improve it.

And congratulations to Apnea Academy for what in my opinion is a very well deserved recognition.

 

[trullalla]

trux, maybe you shouldn't get an award as a captain/coach, but you should get one for having discovered the vodka masks

btw, if you can get hold of a number, please pm me, since i'm very interested

linda

 

[B-J]

The ICARE trophies have been awarded since 2003 and are based on public votes for nominations and elections.

Does this mean that nobody nominated athletes like Herbert or Guy?