Separate rankings for 25m and 50m pools

[MikkoP]

This topic popped up indirectly in a thread about competition equipment restrictions, but since I've been thinking about it for a while and it seems important, I decided to start a new thread about it.

I think AIDA should learn from the example of competitive swimming and finswimming and have separate rankings and world records for 25m and 50m pools.

The reason for this is that currently no one wants to do DNF in 50m pool or DYN in 25m pool. Which is very understandable, since there is around 5-10% difference in the DNF results and maybe 3-5% difference in DYN results, depending on the pool length.

Imagine if FINA had same rankings and records for 25m and 50m pools, like AIDA has now. All the competitive swimmers would only take part in competitions held in 25m pools, because you get much better results in short pool. It would make no sense to compete in a 50m pool, since you had absolutely no change to rank high. But as there are separate rankings for long and short courses, it doesn't matter in which pool you compete in, since your results will be compared agains other results done in similar pools. This should definitely be the case with freediving too.

I'm not sure if there is any information about old AIDA competitions and how long pools they had. If there is, we could move the results in their correct rankings lists subsequently, 25m or 50m. If for some competitions the info is not found, their DNFs could be put to 25m list and DYNs to 50m list as a default.

As for the world records in different pools, the records would be something like:

50m pool, men:
DYN Goran Colak 273m (doping test OK)
DNF Frederik Sessa 207m (doping test OK)

50m pool, women:
DYN Natalia Molchanova 225m (doping test OK)
DNF ??? Jody Fisher 150m (doping test OK)

25m pool, men:
DYN ??? Dave Mullins 248m (doping test OK)
DNF Dave Mullins 218m (doping test OK)

25m pool, women:
DYN ???
DNF Natalia Molchanova 160m (doping test OK)

I'm not completely sure with the results with question marks, so feel free to comfirm or correct them. Anyway, it seems there would be no huge problems with WRs this way. And if there are, we could just leave some of the records open for setting.

Let me know what you think.

 

[CEngelbrecht]

Just a little history, around 2000, AIDA did actually distinguish between 25 and 50 meter pools, exactly like you say, and even things like depth records in salt water and fresh water.

I don't remember the exact year they stopped doing it or under which president (might've been Nagel), but I remember a few instances, where a new 25m record in DYN actually exceeded the 50m record, and vice versa with DNF (better in a 50m pool). So having the distinction based on an idea that 25m DYN and 50m DNF would always be shorter seemed have its limitations (even though that obviously is the trend). Also, I think much of the reason to kill these distinctions was simply that it took extra AIDA resources, which were even scarcer at the time.

 

[Delfino]

Mikko,

I agree. As the sport of freediving evolves and increasingly becomes more professional, I believe it is inevitable that the dynamic disciplines will one day be split into two separate distance categories for standardization. The distances have different performance requirements for both disciplines which requires more focused training, both physically and mentally.

 

[MikkoP]

Just a little history, around 2000, AIDA did actually distinguish between 25 and 50 meter pools, exactly like you say, and even things like depth records in salt water and fresh water.

I don't remember the exact year they stopped doing it or under which president (might've been Nagel), but I remember a few instances, where a new 25m record in DYN actually exceeded the 50m record, and vice versa with DNF (better in a 50m pool). So having the distinction based on an idea that 25m DYN and 50m DNF would always be shorter seemed have its limitations (even though that obviously is the trend). Also, I think much of the reason to kill these distinctions was simply that it took extra AIDA resources, which were even scarcer at the time.

Interesting, thanks for the info.

I think the records in year 2000 were so poor that it didn't matter much in which pool you tried to break them. Men's DNF WR was around 125m and DYN was around 170m. Nowadays it's much harder to break DNF WR in 50m pool or DYN in 25m pool. Of course, it's still possible. But anyone who can break DNF WR in long pool, can for sure improve it even further in a 25m pool.

Also I don't think it takes so much more resources to split the rankings, but doing so just makes more sense in the sport's point of few. It also gives new motivation for the athletes to train and compete, since there are more titles to be won and records to be broken.

 

[Nikodk]

As long our sport is so small, it makes sense just to have one world record per discipline.

If we doubled the number of world records, we would lower the value of each record I think.

Let us make freediving grow some more years before we consider that change.

 

[MikkoP]

Making the change would not double the number of world records. It would change it from 16 to 20. That's still quite little compared to competitive swimming, which has over 80 world records. Sometimes less is more but I don't see why that applies here, WR is always WR.

If we want freediving to grow into a sport that can be taken seriously, we have to think how the performances and competitions can be made to look more professional and interesting, but also more motivating for the athletes. The best way to do so is to take example from other sports that are somewhat close to ours, but already very popular, ie. swimming and finswimming. And we have to start doing changes now, not when freediving will someday, somehow magically have grown by itself. Because if we think and act like freediving is a small sport, it will definitely stay as a small sport forever.

Splitting the rankings could help the sport to grow, because all pool competitions would become interesting to take part in. At present, competitions that have DNF in 50m pool are almost repulsive in freedivers' minds. Also competitions where you can do DYN in 50m pool are much more interesting that those held in 25m pool. This seriously limits the attraction of many competitions, since all serious athletes compete mostly in pools where they can do good results. If there were separate ranking for 25m pools and 50m pools, doing e.g. DNF in 50m pool would be as motivating as doing it in 25m pool, since it would be a separate discipline altogether. Which it indeed is.

 

[jome]

While I support the general idea, I don't think there is actually a rule that says the pool has to be exactly 25m or 50m...I think the minimum is 25 yards, but that's all it says.

So some more rule-tinkering would be needed and not all top-level performances from the past could be directly "converted". For example I think some of Dave's records were done in a 33m pool or something if my memory serves correctly.

 

[trux]

In fact in the Apnea.cz ranking the pool length is one of the data fields available, so it would be no problem to do reports separately for 50m and 25m pools (or even 33m pools, or for any other exotic lengths). The only problem is that this data practically never comes from the organizers. Sometimes the pool length is in the announcement, but the reality does not then always match the announcement. Often also some competitors do their DNF within the DYN round and so although all others did DNF in a 25m pool, some of them might have did it in a 50m pool (happened exactly this to me too). So I planned collecting the data and trying to guess the past competitions after looking up the respective pool, but at the ~1500 competitions is a huge and time demanding task.

However, everyone can add or correct the pool length at any performance (not only their own) - just click the Edit button on the right side of any result row, and in the popup window enter the pool length in meters into the field "Pool length". Currently there is too little data to have separate report ready, but as soon as there will be more of them, I'll certainly add also reports or filters for the pol size.

So if you'd like to see separate reports for 25m and 50m records and performances, just help a bit and enter the pool length at the events you are sure about. It is enough to add it at one or two competitors - once I spot it, I'll adjust the value at all others too. The only problem is if not all performances were done in the same pool (for example some DNF done within the DYN run in 50m, and others in 25m) - in such case I'd need that you mention it in the Notes, while submitting the change.

 

[Jorg]

This is a good discussion. If I remember correctly it was the beginning of 2001 when the 25/50 meter separation and the fresh/salt water separation was removed.

From an athletic stand point it would be interesting to divide disciplines with real performance changers. Doing dnf in a 25 meter of 50 meter pool can make a big difference. But then again using a monofin or bifins does make a big difference as well. Wearing a full body wetsuit with a cone on your head made by NASA to be more streamlined as well...

So where do we stop...

 

[trux]

Hi Jorg! Its a long time we did not hear from you! Yes, you are right, other parameters like the type of fins are on my mind even more important than the pool length. Equally, the difference in temperature, athmospheric pressure, pool ventilation, or altitude may in fact have a greater influence too, so perhaps we should record all of those factors for the statistics

Anyway, as I wrote above, anyone can edit the pool length at any performance in the Apnea.cz ranking, and exactly in the same way, everyone can also specify the type of the fin used (bifins / monofin / hydrofoil / other). Might be quite interesting if there is enough data

 

[MikkoP]

Trux, thanks for the note, I'll go and fill in the pool info about all the competitions I know of.

About the slippery slope argument. Splitting the rankings between 25m and 50m pools would not need lead to separate rankings for different suits, or different fins (although I'm not against that), or own DNF rankings for people who have small feet. It hasn't done that in swimming and it wouldn't do that in freediving.

You could use the same arguments against AIDA having separate ranking for DNF. The difference between DNF and DYN is quite small, things get complicated, there would be too many records, other things affect the performance too, and so on. Therefore there should be no DNF, only DYN.

I think there should be both DYN and DNF, and 25m and 50m pool rankings.