Mifsud announces STA WR attempt

[Giobbi]

Just a newbies curiousity; How long before a comp, at most, would anyone benefit from inhaling pure O2 to get a desent result? Minutes, 5-10 minutes or more?

 

[TimoP]

i belive this to be genuine enough to be a record.
lets face it there are plenty of people around the pool to notice any infringements of rules let alone cheating ...

Also magiciants have a big audience while doing tricks, many very near to them. In this case there was a too good chance to do a pure oxygen trick. I really can't say that he used it, and I really hope he didn't.

I would like to belive to this new unbelievable record, especially if he has trained so much as said here. But when I saw the video...
I think the Fair Play is so important in freediving competitions and attempts, that there must be this kind of discussion, if there is some reasons to it, like that packing in a different place close a equipment box with open hole to the freedivers face absolutely IMO is.

 

[Giobbi]

Im defintivily not saying that - want to be clear about that! Only curious about the "trick" and its effect, how long before a comp you could take O2 to get effect etc.

 

[TimoP]

For Giobbi
It's really effective when you inhale 100% O2 and full you lungs with it just seconds before apnea. You have then about 5 times that amount of oxygen in the lungs than normally after full inhale, cause there is 21% O2 in air. If you do it some minutes before, you exhale it partly out. In blood you have normally 98-99% of the max oxygen saturation. So you can storage extra oxygen in your lungs, but not in your blood. So the time depends how you exhale the O2 out. By normal exhaling you exhale it out in some minutes.

In AIDA rules there is mentioned that a competitor must be the last 45 minutes before performance under judges eyes. One reason for that rule is that you can't get pure oxygen before performance.

EDIT Because everybody can read this, an important caution: inhaling pure oxygen and specially doing a long apnea with it may cause fatal problems. In theory there would be enough oxygen in lungs even for over 30 min apnea, but there are other reasons that can cause even death before it.

 

[Giobbi]

Ah, I see, thx for the answer. I thought for a sec that you could maybe vent for a couple of minutes or so..

 

[TimoP]

Giobbi, of course it depends HOW your exhale and inhale. I think that situation with an full exhale and then an full inhale with O2.

 

[Mullins]

If I was Stephane I'd be a bit grumpy that, after playing by AIDA rules for an AIDA record, I got accused of cheating! I hope this doesn't push him away from AIDA again.

Bill, I reckon you just need to adjust the points system. STA is obviously far too easy....

 

[TimoP]

I believe that after a couple of years there will be clean results about:
STA 12:00, DYN 300 m, CWT 130 m. It's hard to believe to CWT 150 m. So the point system is maybe still right between STA and DYN...

I'm really sorry for Mifsud for this kind of discussion. But it's a part of sport to check that everything has done right if there is a huge step in (WR)results and there is something odd in the case. It is obvious that he trains really much, hard and maybe in the right way to him, so the result is in that way quite possible. Like some day will be 300 m in DYN e.g. to you Mullins.

 

[Kars]

Yeah Mullins, we're waiting for you to take that record back, how's you training going?
Or do have to ask Tom Sietas with his bi fins to 'static' his way to the 300? Hell Stephan may be as well very ready for it right NOW!

Yeesh, and I'm struggling with 6+ and 150m...

Love, Courage and Water,

Kars

ps for CWT I can see the 130+ coming, 139 should be possible when more athletes concentrate more on speed.

 

[Mullins]

Yeah I wonder if Tom or Stephane will get back into DYN

My training is going very well, quite an improvement over last year. Some interesting things to report, but maybe not for this thread.

 

[fcallagy]

Congrats again to Stephane and its a pity to see this going down the doubting road. I have huge respect for eric but wish this was not directed at stephane directly after the record. I know Eric has mentioned how easy it would be to manipulate the system before this though.
I remember in NL when Patric announced his depth which was also a huge jump from the current record, I and plenty of others doubted it but he did i and raised the bar so that its normal ( as normal as nl can be) I think the same here too and in any case its up to aida or any other authority to police it once its being ratified its good enough for me.

 

[trux]

Yeah I wonder if Tom or Stephane will get back into DYN.

I definitely hope that they manage to regain back the record for us bipeds, and prove to the single-legged freedivers that their monofins are just stupid, cumbersome, expensive, and useless gadgets

Stéphane answered to comments on the French forum, similar to these, the following:

"bon pour les autres disciplines, je dois arreter le statique si je veux m'attaquer à autre chose... je réfléchis..."
"well, as for the other disciplines, I'd have to stop with the statics if I want to focus on something else... let me think about it..."

 

[chrismar]

To have a huge jump in performances means that something that athlete is doing is different to what everyone else is doing. That could be genetic, training, preparation, technique, cheating or a combination. From the other side of the world, with no visibility over what he does or doesn't do, I won't be leaping to a conclusion. I've seen the effect that altering training regimes and preparation can do for performances, so I won't discount that as a possibility. Technique is an unlikely point to improve in statics past a given point and I don't see Stephane as extraordinarily gifted on the genetic side, at least compared with the 15 litre lung club.

It is interesting that his training and preparation is the exact opposite of what I have seen improve both my own performances and those of the divers around me. Increased cardio work in particular drops my performances between 10 and 20 percent alone, while warmups before dives (especially long ones) have a negative effect too (though allow me to relax more easily). If you look at the profound improvements coming from people like Kathryn McPhee, much of it on the back of removing cardio & warmup dives, this performance comes as a real surprise to me. I'd be interested to know from Stephane what he does and why.

 

[jf.julian]

Hi to all,
Lets put things in perspective…on Mifsud WR

First i was there, second i m an independent film maker making a film on freediving since HAWAII 2002, third yes i m taking Mifsud defense because i m sad to read this thread, and yes my words are only my point of view and nobody else and i speak only for myself

At Mifsud attempt we saw international news agency (REUTER, AFP, GAMA), 2 national TVs broadcasting for the 8 oclock, news, 1 regional tv, family, sponsors, friends, staff (doctor / coach), international AIDA (A and C levels judges), world class freediver (G. Nery among others). Stephane Mifsud is a responsible profesional athlete who take his activity seriously and take the risk to call up the press for his atempt because he knows the importance of the medias for his sport. He of course did the AIDA urine test and did a blood test on top of that, because he knows the importance of behing clear from suspicious rhumour for his carer.

So, beside family and friends outside the pool aeras, only medias and AIDA international were in the pool aera, one meter away from him with all access to the pool aeras. this was not a « show », but a WR attempt, everybody was well focused.

Mifsud does not speack well english and i m glad, because after such an effort and a beautifull performance anyone will feel really sorry if he had to read such comments about himself.. Please. re-read this thread and put yourself in his shoes… and feel how lovely it feels…

its because of world class athletes sports has media recognition brigring sponsors in the game. Everyone should take benefit from anyone’s performance, and i m surprized to see how easy it is for certain to doudt AIDA jugement and profesionality. I was next to the judges, they did a fantastic job.

And mr E.F. Next time you see a WR announcement attempt… posted 3 month in advance… and you have so many doudts, i invite you to come along and enjoy it instead of writting your bitterness on the net…and let me show you how one truth is false unless the all truth is said…when you say : « his performances are about half. 11'35" in static and 213m dynamic 'at home,' 6'30" and 99m outside of home. » you are right but you forget to say that « outside of home » was in CYPRUS in 2003 for the Sonny contest, (i was there) and that it was a TEAM competition. And beside a few individual WR attempted,(martin and herbet). The priority for any team was NOT to get any red card (resulting to an automatic disqualification) so nobody really took risk, and you also forget to mention that team Babylonia, (mifsud, frolla, nery) played it safe and by the point…and won the contest… so mifsud did his job for his team and by the way won the competition…

Another exemple…you are surprised why athetles are not so good outside their environment you should know, since you didnt do so well in Monaco, (i was there too). You should know that some atlete do their P.B only during the competition not during practice, (no one need to burn themself on practice) so stop behing « so surprise » that Mifsud did only so little in his practice in Monaco then won it so « strangly » its been six years… get over with it… you lost the final…its ok…

you see mr E.F. how easy it is to to say things really the way they are, it makes the rhumors less and less suspicious and the truth so more and more easy to ear

So work on behing a better sport (gentle)man, and focus on attempt to make this sport shine, because from where i stand you look like a bitter ex-competitor behind his computer…


Sincerly yours
Jf julian,

 

[Bill]

'I definitely hope that they manage to regain back the record for us bipeds, and prove to the single-legged freedivers that their monofins are just stupid, cumbersome, expensive, and useless gadgets '
Trux

I second the hope (for what it's worth)

jf.Julian

For taking the time to respond.....merci beaucoup

 

[chrismar]

That's quite interesting, jf. By comparison, I've witnessed three world records broken and several ranking-topping dives. There was no media, no sponsors (outside of the generosity of Fran from No Bubbles & Mike from Oceanhunter) and no coaches. The national news did not show up, the newspapers considered it not worth their while and the only support was from friends & family. The athletes paid to get judges over at great expense and recieved no compensation whatsoever. One of those records was a 23m improvement on the previous best.

I understand how emphatic you are on the subject and that it's a tender one, but demonstrating how much more Stephane had to lose if he failed doesn't really lower the level of doubt in the mind of those who don't trust this record. Personally, I won't make a call either way. It's a huge performance that has to be attributed to something, but that something is not automatically cheating. There are many factors at play that could influence a performance. What I'd really like if for Stephane to sign up for the World Champs, both to see him compete and to talk (through a translator, though!) training methods.

ps. For an example of a short turnaround between good and bad performances, one just has to go back to Alexy's dynamics last year. Three weeks after blacking out at 145m, he came up clean as a whistle at 250m in Lignano. Though I'm pretty sure that wasn't a tainted performance, I would consider that to be at least as strange as what Eric described.

edit: Just to make it clear, my point in the last piece was not to cast doubt on Alexey's performances, but rather indicate that numbers seldom tell the whole story.

 

[efattah]

I think TimoP has an extremely valid point about the final packing and the possibility of a stream of enriched O2. I would like to ask the AIDA judges how can they be certain that there was no enriched O2 in this area? What tests were performed?

I do a lot of deep dive recompression on pure O2. Unlike most divers who breathe O2 at 6m for 5'00", I just take a breath of pure O2 at the surface and hang at 6m for 5'00" on the one breath. As a result I've had a chance to experiment a lot on how much of a difference a little bit of O2 makes. I've found for example that even taking just the last packing as O2 (leaving about 40% O2 in the lungs), allows me to do almost 12'00" in static !

FYI, I have never accused Guillaume Nery of anything, I've never questioned him since the day I first heard of him even before his first record.

Anyway, I would like to see dramatically more rigorous tests or regulations in place by AIDA to ensure that O2 streams are not used. This is, after all, what David Blaine used, most likely. In David's case, he trained extremely hard, and did 7'58" true static in training. But just because a person trains extremely hard, it doesn't mean everything is necessarily fair.

In the case of Tom Sietas, everything about him says static champion. He has the perfect body type, tall, thin, with huge lungs. His training is 4-5 max statics per week -- highly specific -- for years. I strongly believe his training is the most likely to produce high results. After his years of training, it would be extremely sad to see the record pushed beyond his reach without good reason. It is for that reason alone, for Tom's sake, that I bring up important questions, which, for example, Timo has taken seriously.

 

[Arjen]

After his years of training, it would be extremely sad to see the record pushed beyond his reach without good reason. It is for that reason alone, for Tom's sake, that I bring up important questions, which, for example, Timo has taken seriously.

Not only for Tom, there are a couple of persons out there who also do train very hard on static. Ulf has done some hugh statics in competition recently and so did Dave. And there will probably be other others like them in the future. It could be like the world records set by East German women in athletics and swimming 30 years back. I can't say it is so in this case, I really want to say it is not the case, but I'm a bit skeptical by nature and some persons here have made some good points.

So please Stephan, relieve me of my doubt, come to Denmark and show me you are the real thing.

 

[trux]

And what about accepting Stéphane's offer and coming to join him for couple of days or even weeks in his training? If you have any doubts, you should be able to verify them pretty quick. And it is a beautiful place - you can make excellent holidays with plenty of diving, so it definitely won't be any wasted time. And you can then report us the results of your investigation.

 

[s.mifsud]

today i'm tired after this very hard and long préparation, i can't prepare me for a new thing now. i can't do a competition if i not find. i'm not à machine!
this summer, i work for my scool diver. 2500 childrens dive with me evry summer. i can't organised dive and training for a big competition!
but i'm here, if some one think i'm sharper, come with scientifique test or training with me and after he understand all.