• Welcome to the DeeperBlue.com Forums, the largest online community dedicated to Freediving, Scuba Diving and Spearfishing. To gain full access to the DeeperBlue.com Forums you must register for a free account. As a registered member you will be able to:

    • Join over 44,280+ fellow diving enthusiasts from around the world on this forum
    • Participate in and browse from over 516,210+ posts.
    • Communicate privately with other divers from around the world.
    • Post your own photos or view from 7,441+ user submitted images.
    • All this and much more...

    You can gain access to all this absolutely free when you register for an account, so sign up today!

Okinawa Team WC 2010

Thread Status: Hello , There was no answer in this thread for more than 60 days.
It can take a long time to get an up-to-date response or contact with relevant users.
Great the results have been posted quickly...but hasnt there been a mistake with the points calculation.
Where exactly do you see a mistake? As far as I can see, all penalties were assigned exactly following the rules you quoted. AP-RP + 1pt for the missing tag.
 
Sanso, so penalty points have been awarded somewhere along the line i take it, but the results published on the AIDA2010.net blog are wrong? ( as they dont show any penalty points)
 
Well, I saw the table, but do not see any erros there. At which competitor do you see one?
 
Thanks Trux, I did see the other link you posted, but didn't really look at the results, as I saw the other one for the official website...so it turns out that the official site doesn't have the official results...weird!
 
CWT day two has been delayed once more due to bad weather. Forecast looking favourably for June 6th.
 
Christian Maldamé starts just as an opener. It means his performance does not count. I do not quite understand why they chose him, because he is much stronger in depth than Fred Sessa (Christian announced 92m vs Sessa 65m), stronger in statics (7+ vs 6+ minutes), and not bad in dynamics either (200m). Perhaps Fred Sessa plans doing a dynamics close to 300m to eliminate the difference between him and Christian in CWT and STA. Or perhaps Christian is not in good form. Who knows, but I am sure they did the decision after a good reflexion. We may know later some details, and will see whether it pays out

Interesting - and strange they didnt used Morgan as a the reserve instead... But Maybe Christian is bad or something ( but then again - why would he announce 95m beeing ill)?
Lets hope for a 300m dynamic from Frederic Sessa then... :)

Thanks for all updates... They are most welcome as the official site is badly updated and apparently lacks some quality.
Looking forward to the 6th of july! And more updates!

Morten
 
Last edited:
Interesting - and strange they didnt used Morgan as a the reserve instead... But Maybe Christian is bad or something ( but then again - why would he announce 95m beeing ill)?
Lets hope for a 300m dynamic from Frederic Sessa then... :)
Well, some details came already up on the French forum. Christian, of course, is quite upset (although he is one of the calmest guys I know). Greg Piazzola (the president of AIDA France) explains his decision. It is hard to judge the decision, but it is clear that it is very frustrating for the athlete who sacrificed part of his life to it, and also has put a lot of money into the participation. However, it would be the case for any of the four, and frankly told the sum of their PB in combination is practically identical at all of them, so it is clear the decision was not easy. (Fred allegedly has shown better performances in STA and CWT on the place than in the last competitions, and Christian was not ready to dive to his PB of 97m, so his theoretic combined points were only slightly above - my previous claim about Sessa having to go to 300 to beat it was hence incorrect).

All I can tell is that it is a really unfortunate situation and that it might have been better to make the choice before the departure. It would at least avoid the rather important huge cost that the freedivers pay to great extent from their own pocket. On the other hand you never know who will acclimatize better, and whether someone gets sick or injured in the days before the competition.

What I am sure of, is that I would not like to be in the place of neither Greg nor Christian.

For those who are interested, the French discussion is here. It is emotional but civil:
Esprit Apnée :: Voir le sujet - Championnats du monde d'apnée par équipe AIDA 2010

Google translation:
Google Translate
 
Last edited:
Well, while we are waiting for better weather, and don't have any news from the WC, I'll post at least the translation of a short interview Radek Veverka (Czech Team coach) did with Guillaume and Fred from the French team. The original is at Okinawa – dal?í odsunutí druhého dne CWT - SILENT TOUCH, and there are interviews also with many other teams, so if you are interested, browse through the blog with the help of the Google translator.

Here comes the interview:

1) Guillaume, I've heard you told this is your last competition. Is it true??
No, of course not. I'll go on competing, but have also many other projects, so the competing may not be the only priority.

2) Fred, where do you think your limits in dynamics are? Your last performance 244m is close to the WR, and allegedly it was clean performance with big reserve.
I do not even know where my limits are. Personally I believe I did not come close to them yet.

3) What are your ambitions for the WC?
We definitely want to place better than the French football team in SA! No, really, we'd love to gain the gold. However, we are aware there are plenty of other good teams here. We'll do all we can, and will see at the end of the championship.

4) The last time you won. What's your recipe for the victory?
The experience from the year 2008 speak clearly: good strategy, and 100% controlled performances.

5) Message to Czech freedivers?
Where the hell is your male team!! :D

:D Thanks and good luck!
 
Well, some details came already up on the French forum. Christian, of course, is quite upset (although he is one of the calmest guys I know). Greg Piazzola (the president of AIDA France) explains his decision. It is hard to judge the decision, but it is clear that it is very frustrating for the athlete who sacrificed part of his life to it, and also has put a lot of money into the participation. However, it would be the case for any of the four, and frankly told the sum of their PB in combination is practically identical at all of them, so it is clear the decision was not easy. (Fred allegedly has shown better performances in STA and CWT on the place than in the last competitions, and Christian was not ready to dive to his PB of 97m, so his theoretic combined points were only slightly above - my previous claim about Sessa having to go to 300 to beat it was hence incorrect).

All I can tell is that it is a really unfortunate situation and that it might have been better to make the choice before the departure. It would at least avoid the rather important huge cost that the freedivers pay to great extent from their own pocket. On the other hand you never know who will acclimatize better, and whether someone gets sick or injured in the days before the competition.

What I am sure of, is that I would not like to be in the place of neither Greg nor Christian.

For those who are interested, the French discussion is here. It is emotional but civil:
Esprit Apnée :: Voir le sujet - Championnats du monde d'apnée par équipe AIDA 2010

Google translation:
Google Translate

Well, this is not the first time. Two years ago Will Winram and Christian Maldame were on the French team. Will was told he would compete (Maldame was alternate). In the last second Christian was made the competitor, and Will had to sit out. The reason was not clear. Although Will had better performances, they said he was 'less consistent'. But this still did not justify the last minute change. In that case, Christian was the lucky one. Today he is the unlucky one. In the end I suppose things average out.
 
Well, this is not the first time. Two years ago Will Winram and Christian Maldame were on the French team. Will was told he would compete (Maldame was alternate).
Hm, I do not exactly know who was designed as alternate originally, but doubt it was Christian. As far as I can see in the ranking, his performances were better than those of Morgan Bourc'his, so I guess it was rather Morgan who got the priority over Will. BTW, Christian mentions this case in his post at Espirt Apnee too, so I guess it was really not him, otherwise he would probably not speak about it.
 
Last edited:
I think the current practice of using alternates this way is very bad and against all the theories of sportsmanship that I know of. I also know of many athletes who have expressed their desire to never go to a team worlds and to go only to the individual worlds for this point alone. My suggestion to remedy this situation follows:

1 - Have both the alternates and the team divers dive on the comp day and count only the team. It seems alot of the frustration of suddenly switching to an alternate is that you don't get to compete and not that it "won't count". Maybe some of the people who were forced to be alternates at the last moment can comment if this is true?

2 - Let the individual athlete decide if they will compete as an alternate or not and not to leave it to the coach or head of the AIDA national or whatever. If the rule #1 is in place then it would not be such a big deal to step down if asked and if the competitor did not step down and competed along with the alternate then it would be known whether they "should have" stepped down or not. There would still be drama then of which alternate to pick etc, just not the issues of making the athletes do something they clearly don't want to do.

Note: The team world AIDA comps (and almost all the AIDA comps) are paid for almost 100% by the competing divers so it seems crazy for the rules etc not to support the competitors. It is not like in Formula 1 racing or Wimbledon tennis where the competitors get paid to travel and compete by the sponsors and so there is some theory for the sponsors to tell the athletes what to do because it will be better for TV coverage or whatever. The competitors should be running the show at the AIDA comps as they pay the bills. I don't understand why any of the competitors agree to this current system, they should all say in unison, "all the alternates should get to dive!!".

Cheers and good luck to all at Okinawa - Wes Lapp
 
In support of Wes' comments, I think they should regress to the 1998 rules. At the 1998 team worlds, you entered five people, all five dove, all five did statics, but you only counted the best four. So, in the current rules, four people could dive (if they chose to), and only the best three would count. In this way, the 'proof is in the pudding', and the best athletes' performances count.

If you only had three people, they all dive, and they all count towards final points.

In this fashion, everyone always dives.
 
Don't agree...

Team comp is to find THREE athletes that is good in all three disciplines and this three is the once who represent their country from the start to the end of the comp.

If we open-up to start involve "old" rules that was up-running, and working before we had individual championships, then we will see a lot of teams with one "extra" athlete who can do one discipline extreamly well and then sucks in the rest.

The individual championship is for those athletes who are good, but did not make the team for the wc and be one of their Nationals "over-all" three best athletes.

/B

ps. then of course we could let the alternates have their own small comp on the side of the real WC - just to have some results for the international ranking list. (not in the result list of the WC)
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: Goran Colak
Well, that can be fixed easily by counting not the best three performances in each discipline, but the best three combinations - being a specialist would not help in this case.

If not acceptable, then getting rid of the "alternate" entirely might be a fairer solution
 
Yes, what I was saying was that the best *athletes* count, not the best performances. So the athlete with the worst total is rejected from the score.

No specialists.
 
Bill and Eric,

Thanks for the excellent feedback on the proposal to let the alternates dive. I want to clarify one thing, especially to Bill's post.

I would keep the same "pick three and that is your team" start to finish like it is now. The only difference would be that if a team had an alternate, that the alternate would dive along with the other competitors and it wouldn't count toward anything except maybe their own AIDA PB ranking, just that they be allowed to do a "competition dive". Just the same way in many competitions they have some "warm up" divers dive just to make sure the system is running OK. I even think that Tanya Streeter set one of her US National records this way (maybe someone can tell the details of the story!!), that she was at a comp and volunteered to do a warm up dive or dynamic and set a new US national record that counted even know she wasn't a team competitor.

I don't think its good to have four people dive and pick the best three of the four as it gives huge advantage to having a team of four which is expensive and hard to do for many countries so "small team countries" can send only three divers and still hope to compete. I think too that doing best 3 of four ruins the "team" spirit that all three performances will count like in a relay race, every runner's relay leg must count, not the best 3 of four relay legs etc.

Cheers Wes
 
The alternates can actually dive in Okinawa too, and they do - as you can see there are several "openers", so if they create a NR, WR, or PB, I suppose it will count since it is supervised by the same international judges as the main group. So far, I think there is no problem.

And having an alternate is already a huge advantage for the countries that can afford it anyway, regardles whether they have to pick up three before the start. So allowing all four to compete, but counting only the best three, would not change a lot. If we want to eliminate the advantage, we should disallow alternates altogether, and enforce the final qualification in advance.
 
BTW, the competition goes on again, so let's focus on that now :)

Result not online yet, but I know at least that the Czech girls got white cards, and are so the deepest female team :)
 
DeeperBlue.com - The Worlds Largest Community Dedicated To Freediving, Scuba Diving and Spearfishing

ABOUT US

ISSN 1469-865X | Copyright © 1996 - 2024 deeperblue.net limited.

DeeperBlue.com is the World's Largest Community dedicated to Freediving, Scuba Diving, Ocean Advocacy and Diving Travel.

We've been dedicated to bringing you the freshest news, features and discussions from around the underwater world since 1996.

ADVERT