Selection of athletes for WCs

[mortenkv]

Instead of hijacking another thread (wildcards for WCs) I start this thread...

In Denmark we recently reviewed the way we select athletes for future World Championchips (team and individual).

The selection is made purely on results from "last" year and from present year made up until 3 months before official competition start. This is our ranking for the coming WC in pool for DYN men : Ranking DYN men Denmark 1. january 2010 - 15. june 2011

In Denmark we have so far not discussed under which federation the dives must take place... can a CMAS DYN qualify for AIDA WC - or vice versa? I guess it could if it was the case (in DK), but so far this have not been an issue.

I wonder how other nations does this delicate selection of athletes?

I hope to be inspired by your different answers and approaches,
Morten

 

[Simos]

Surely you should choose whoever can hold their breath the longest Morten lol
Posted via Mobile Device

 

[mortenkv]

Unfortunately there have been examples that contradicts this clear and clever answer... - and btw - excactly how do you judge who can hold their breath for the longest time and perform the best in a WC?

Morten

 

[Simos]

Hi Morten, i was half joking and I'm really not qualified to answer this as I don't have much competition experience etc. I say half joking because I guess the point I was making is that it's a shame in a niche sport like freediving to have aida and cmas, conceptually it shouldn't really matter when the performance was made if the rules are the same and the performances can be verified but I guess if say the rules are significantly different and wc are held under aida rules then I can see the argument for only taking into account aida results for the selection..

My personal view is that it is important for everyone to know how exactly the selection will take place well in advance: the each athlete can decide where to compete knowing whether or not their performance will be counted etc
Posted via Mobile Device

 

[trux]

As for AIDA Czech Republic, despite belonging to the nations with an important member base, we will likely have problems to find enough of people willing to go to the pool championship. The selection is made by the average of the best two results in the last 18 months (ending on July 1st). However, I doubt we'll send the full team - seeing the cost of participation for the indoors WC in Lignano Sabbiadoro this year (several folds higher than in 2009), several freedivers told me already privately that they do not plan going. They prefer to spend the money and their vacation days on a trip to Egypt or somewhere else.

I do not know yet what the situation for the depth WC is, but traditionally depth disciplines are paradoxically more popular among Czechs (a deeply landlocked nation), and the stay at the sea in Greece is also more attractive than spending a week (and several thousands of euros) in a pool in Italy, I think there will be more interest. The selection criteria is similar to the pool WC, just instead of the average of two best results, the best (single) result in the last 18 months before July 1st, is decisive. That's because there are less occasions to compete in depth.

 

[emero]

@Trux
As for the pool WC's we have similar situation here in Poland and I doubt it's much different in other countries.
Despite having 4 wild cards we're unlikely to actually use them :-(

Hopefully the organizer will rethink how such high fee is going to affect the number of competitors...