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In light of Beijing
- Thread starterscoles
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Thread Status: Hello
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It can take a long time to get an up-to-date response or contact with relevant users.
It can take a long time to get an up-to-date response or contact with relevant users.
It's pretty hard breaking through to IOC, the Olympic committee. In underwater terms, the IOC traditionally listens to CMAS, who hates the existence of eg. AIDA and the kind of freediving it represents. Also, even for CMAS, it's hard to break through to the Olympic games. For what I know, they've tried for years to get finswimming acknowlegded for the games, without any luck at all.
My personal theory is that the freediving activities has the same sportive potential as the skiing events, and with regards to Olympic Games there's a good comparison to be drawn from skiing. [ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snowboarding"]Snowboarding[/ame] was concocted in the 1970's by some crazy kids and introduced to the Olympic Games in 1998, meaning it took that sport some 20 years to get organized well enough for IOC to take it onboard.
Now, freediving is actually older than snowboarding, having it's first nolimits-like record attempts from around 1950 (and of course many would say freediving stems from the dawn of humans). But as a traditionally organized sport with regular competitions and not just records, that didn't really start before ca. 1994-96. So the 2016 Olympics doesn't sound too far fetched, actually.
Except of course for the CMAS element, which will probably delay this process. Also, we shouldn't forget the risks of our game, which will probably make some IOC sports politicians hesitant (I of course would compare the risks of freediving with those of skiing, but that's a different discussion).
And again, it might not even be the ultimate goal to get freediving to the Olympics all together. I still think there's a massive potential in a collective 'World UnderWater Games', including static, dynamic & depth apnea, finswimming, UW hockey, UW rugby, harpoon target shooting, you name it.
I'll actually commend CMAS for putting a lot of events together in the Bari 2007 session (though I don't know how well that went), or though it saddens me that such a good aquatic concept doesn't include the apnea events.
Now, freediving is actually older than snowboarding, having it's first nolimits-like record attempts from around 1950 (and of course many would say freediving stems from the dawn of humans). But as a traditionally organized sport with regular competitions and not just records, that didn't really start before ca. 1994-96. So the 2016 Olympics doesn't sound too far fetched, actually.
Except of course for the CMAS element, which will probably delay this process. Also, we shouldn't forget the risks of our game, which will probably make some IOC sports politicians hesitant (I of course would compare the risks of freediving with those of skiing, but that's a different discussion).
And again, it might not even be the ultimate goal to get freediving to the Olympics all together. I still think there's a massive potential in a collective 'World UnderWater Games', including static, dynamic & depth apnea, finswimming, UW hockey, UW rugby, harpoon target shooting, you name it.
I'll actually commend CMAS for putting a lot of events together in the Bari 2007 session (though I don't know how well that went), or though it saddens me that such a good aquatic concept doesn't include the apnea events.
A lot of freedivers arent interested in promoting the sport. "Pro" sports are tainted, and some of the purity is lost. Why does everything need to be mass-promoted? I think you'll find that many who are drawn to freediving dont care or even dont want it.
freediving as a sport way be one of only ways a person way be able to go to the olympics. i personally know someone who would give their first born child to represent their country in the olympics, and the only way they could ever do that is by the only sport they are actually good enough for.
some people just have other reasons to participate in a sport
some people just have other reasons to participate in a sport
I think when we start seeing freedivers that train six hour a day six days a week that maybe it should be in a venue bigger venue that showcases athletes competing against each other but not until then.
Erik a good amount of the sports at the Olympics are not professional sports. Look at rowing for instance. The rowers of Canada do extremely well for the little funding that they or any other Canadian athlete gets. They do it because they love it.
Edit: I still don't see freediving breaking into the Olympics as it not a spectator sport.
Erik a good amount of the sports at the Olympics are not professional sports. Look at rowing for instance. The rowers of Canada do extremely well for the little funding that they or any other Canadian athlete gets. They do it because they love it.
Edit: I still don't see freediving breaking into the Olympics as it not a spectator sport.
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