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Spearfishing World Championship NOW!

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.

spaghetti

Campari Survivor
May 31, 2005
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It's day 2 of the Cmas sparfishing world championship at Isla Margarita, Venezuela. The firts day has been dominated by the Spanish team (Croatia is 2nd, Italy 3rd). Spearos are now into the 2nd, decisive day of the comp.
Here's the link to the champ website: XXVI Campeonato Mundial de Pesca Submarina CMAS
Here's the results of day 1 (teams and individual):
Teams:
1 Spain 282,46
2. Croatia 154,9
3. Italiy 120,34
4. Venezuela 110,26
5. Chile 92,19
6. Greece 73,59
7. USA 70,19
8. Portugal 67,86
9. Tahiti 66,08
10. France 56,06
11. Brasile 45,02
12. Ukraina 32,76
13. Australia 22,41
14. UK 21,66
15. South Africa 10,21
Individual:
1. Kerejeta Loseba ESP 30010 100,00%
2. Mullor Juan Fuentes ESP 29230 97,40%
3. Carbonell Pedro ESP 25525 85,05%
4. Sideris Loannis GRE 22085 73,59%
5. Ramacciotti Maurizio ITA 19645 65,46%
6. Buratovic Antonio CRO 18840 62,78%
7. Gospic Daniel CRO 18085 60,26%
8. Benoist David FRA 17450 58,15%
9. Alex Ortega VEN 16980 56,58%
10. Harold USA 16225 54,07%
11. Rejes VEN 16110 53,68%
12. Zephirin Tarahu TAH 13445 44,80%
13. Jody Lot POR 11435 38,10%
14. Ossandon Soto Miguel Angel CHI 11000 36,65%
15. Paulo Longo BRA 10185 33,94%
16. Contreras Bosquez Franco Mauricio CHI 9675 32,24%
17. Marinov Dario CRO 9560 31,86%
18. Bellani Stefano ITA 9050 30,16%
19. De Silvestri Bruno ITA 7420 24,73%
20. Paul Rosso AUS 7025 23,41%

source: apneamagazine.com fantastic italian website with 2 editors at Isla Margarita
 
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Thanks for the information Spaghetti.

Why isn't Apnea magazine avaliable in english:rcard
 
Reactions: spaghetti
Thank you Spaghetti for the information.

For those interested, here a couple of pics of the first day's number of fishes (valid and invalid) by country and spearo, quite intesresting too see that the fishing was low and must have been hard...that's spearfishing!
Let's see what happens today.

Roberto
 

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Latest news available: it's raining there, with 3 knots wind. The comp started with delay.
The Spanish team is said to have made several tours at Isla Margarita in the previous months so to prepare the competition. However the water, weather and fish conditions yesterday are said to be much different than the average of the previous weeks. The spanish are classy.
Yesterday my italians have been doing so and so. Only Ramacciotti (5th) did a good comp, but I had no doubt: he ranked 3rd in Brazil 2002, and 7th in Chile 2004, he always does good in Latin America. While Bellani, the World champ in Chile 2004, had 4 fish discarded for a few grams under legal weight. Many spearos have had discarded fish for the same reason. Some teams are under zero points for penalties...
 

It's Joseba Kerejeta, small spelling mistake ;-)
 
I wonder if this Joseba is the same diver that is fishing in one of the Paulo Pacheco videos I have ?

If he is the same diver he must have improve from that time, he was fishing well but not as impressive as other guys like Alberto March, etc.
 
I wonder if this Joseba is the same diver that is fishing in one of the Paulo Pacheco videos I have ?

If he is the same diver he must have improve from that time, he was fishing well but not as impressive as other guys like Alberto March, etc.

I believe so; I know he has appeared in a number of videos and also is a regular contributor to Spanish Apnea, travelling the world to report on spearfishing in far-flung places! Hard life. He used to be sponsored by the old Sporasub brand and was involved in product development I believe? Some of the guys on Medfisf know him and there's a few pictures of him with some good fish.
 
Reactions: spaghetti
Unoficial results:

Individual:
1.- Keretja SPA
2.- Sideris GRE
3.- Carbonell SPA
4.- Ramacciotti ITA



Teams:
1.- Spain
2.- Italy
3.- Croatia

On a side note, the south african Blignaut was disqualified for attaching the fishes to his waist stringer ???, therefore losing the 2nd place of the day AND what would have meant the second place in the overall standing....I feel it for him, must have been a misjudgement due to the lack of oxigen after 6 hours in the water!

Let's wait for the details of the competition tomorrow.

Roberto
 
Reactions: spaghetti

that sux :vangry...weather will surely have a detrimental effect on the wt/# fish...you would think the Ven. would be ranking better in their home waters....focus must be difficult with all those Ven. girls:inlove, right Spagorofl
 
Final rankings, happy for Italy vice-world champion, but Spain rules! Well done to USA (8th) and UK (12th). The english did better than Brazil and Australia, and UK's Kevin Daly overshot our ex world champ Stefano Bellani. Well done the englishmen. Sorry for the south african guy: he could be world vice-champion now if he had not kept the stringer at the belt. Wich sounds quite strange for a south african. I'm curious what would Miles say on this one.
INDIVIDUAL:
rank, name, nation, day 1, day 2 total ponts
1 Joseba Kerejeta Espana 100,000 81,705 181,705
2 Loannis Sideris Grecia 73,592 93,075 166,667
3 Pedro Carbonell Espana 85,055 69,674 154,729
4 Maurizio Ramacciotti Italia 65,462 74,721 140,183
5 Daniel Gospić Croacia 60,263 74,090 134,353
6 Andre Domingues Portugal 10,013 100,000 110,013
7 Alex Ortega Venezuela 56,581 48,636 105,217
8 Juan Fuentes Espana 97,401 0,000 97,401
9 Bruno de Silvestri Italia 24,725 63,146 87,871
10 Harol Dean Estados Unidos 54,065 31,426 85,491
11 Antonio Buratović Croacia 62,779 18,354 81,133
12 Jhony Reyes Venezuela 53,682 19,469 73,151
13 Kevin Daly Gran Bretana 10,996 58,700 69,696
14 Jaco Blignaut Sudafrica 0,000 69,557 69,557
15 Zephirin Tarahu Tahiti 44,802 22,755 67,557
16 Stefano Bellani Italia 30,157 37,309 67,466
17 Benoist David Francia 58,147 8,803 66,950
18 Miguel Soto Chile 36,654 24,780 61,434
19 Jody Lot Portugal 38,104 20,188 58,292
20 Paulo Longo Brasil 33,939 19,880 53,819
21 Antonio Silva Portugal 19,743 27,964 47,707
22 Dario Marinov Croacia 31,856 14,847 46,703
23 Franco Bosquez Chile 32,239 11,414 43,653
24 Roman Fedash Ucrania 17,944 19,249 37,193
25 Carlos Fung Peru 7,398 28,638 36,036
26 Kieran Andrews Nueva Zelanda 0,000 32,277 32,277
27 Drew Fenney Australia -11,080 43,104 32,024
28 Jhony Ortega Venezuela 0,000 26,951 26,951
29 Lossy Loic Francia 6,781 19,263 26,044
30 Kuznestsov Mikhail Rusia 0,000 24,795 24,795
31 Paul Roso Australia 23,409 0,000 23,409
32 Tsiou Fouc Franck Tahiti 21,276 0,734 22,010
33 Andrii Lagutin Ucrania 14,812 6,661 21,473
34 Fernando Thoni Brasil 11,080 9,844 20,924
35 Mike Hickey Estados Unidos 20,560 0,000 20,560
36 Jorge Rodriguez Chile 23,292 -5,854 17,438
37 Daniel Márquez Peru 0,000 16,021 16,021
38 Gyula Plagany Sudafrica 10,213 0,000 10,213
39 Paul Christie Australia 10,080 0,000 10,080
40 Peter Herbert Nueva Zelanda 0,000 9,478 9,478
41 Alan Fraser Sudafrica 0,000 7,350 7,350
42 Nicolás Milanes Colombia 6,898 0,000 6,898
43 Keith Eayrs Gran Bretana 10,663 -3,903 6,760
44 Emmanouil Peristeris Grecia 0,000 6,485 6,485
45 Julian Lockett Peru 0,000 6,162 6,162
46 Nikolaos Kambanis Grecia 0,000 6,059 6,059
47 Teva Montagnon Tahiti 0,000 5,986 5,986
48 Volkan Demircioğlu Turquia -4,432 6,426 1,994
49 Georges Martens Brasil 0,000 0,000 0,000
50 Jorge Pareja Colombia 0,000 0,000 0,000
51 Hebert Delgado Colombia 0,000 0,000 0,000
52 Rapo Jukka Tom Finlandia 0,000 0,000 0,000
53 Levonen Jukka Tapio Finlandia 0,000 0,000 0,000
54 David Pearce Gran Bretana 0,000 0,000 0,000
55 Shane Fitzmaurice Nueva Zelanda 0,000 0,000 0,000
56 Mario Espinoza Peru 0,000 0,000 0,000
57 Alexander Kochetrov Rusia 0,000 0,000 0,000
58 Olga Surgakora Rusia 0,000 0,000 0,000
59 Steve Tetuani Tahiti 0,000 0,000 0,000
60 Selim Konya Turquia 0,000 0,000 0,000
61 sergii Kozlenko Ucrania 0,000 0,000 0,000
62 Salakari Marko Finlandia 0,000 0,000 0,000
63 Mille Christian Francia 0,000 0,000 0,000
64 Anthony Heugh Australia 0,000 0,000 0,000
65 Miguel Guinovart Estados Unidos -4,432 0,000 -4,432
66 Laakso Pertti Rudolf Finlandia -4,432 0,000 -4,432
67 Bonci David Francia -8,864 0,000 -8,864
68 Hakan Gencer Turquia
TEAMS:
rank nation day 1 day 2 total points
1 Espana 282,456 151,379 433,84
2 Italia 120,344 175,176 295,52
3 Croacia 154,898 107,291 262,19
4 Portugal 67,860 148,152 216,01
5 Venezuela 110,263 95,056 205,32
6 Grecia 73,592 105,619 179,21
7 Chile 92,185 30,340 122,53
8 Estados Unidos 70,193 31,426 101,62
9 Tahiti 66,078 29,475 95,55
10 Sudafrica 10,213 76,907 87,12
11 Francia 56,064 28,066 84,13
12 Gran Bretana 21,659 54,797 76,46
13 Brasil 45,019 29,724 74,74
14 Australia 22,409 43,104 65,51
15 Ucrania 32,756 25,910 58,67
16 Peru 7,398 50,821 58,22
17 Nueva Zelanda 0,000 41,755 41,76
18 Rusia 0,000 24,795 24,80
19 Colombia 6,898 0,000 6,90
20 Finlandia -4,432 0,000 -4,43
21 Turquia -4,432 -5,282 -9,71
 
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Reactions: scottwilson
"Jaco Blignaut incident" embarrassing!

Here is a "report" from Tony Heugh (Ozi) who was at the World Spearfishing Championships in Venezuela:

"Jaco was unfairly disqualified on the first day, after the Chilean divers lodged a protest against him for using a body stringer.

Jaco did not use a body stringer. All he did was to swim his fish to the boat and hand it to the commissioner. Technically we all did this - how else does one get the fish to the boat?

The Chilean divers were irritated with Jaco because he found fish in the same cave they had also scouted. Jaco had a plan to get these fish by surfacing into an air pocket at the back of the cave and stringing his fish on a stringer attached to a drop weight at the bottom of the cave. This way he did not have to swim out of the cave each time he speared a fish.

The Chilians never thought of Jaco's method and were very envious when they saw him swim out of the cave with a stringer of weighers. Other top divers including Maurizio backed Jaco but the judicial committee interpereted the rules the way of the Chileans and their protest was upheld.

I tried several times to intervene on Jaco's behalf. Jaco consistantly stuck to his version of the events and most of the divers, including myself, believed his version.
.......The standard of organisation for the competition was not up to scratch. Each day hours were spent hanging around the start wasting time while the organisers went about seemingly without direction. I have never before been to a competition where I had to get upat 5.30am for an 11h45 start.

On the 2nd day the armader of boats congregated at the same starting point of the first day and waited for the official boat to turn up. When it eventually arrived the chief organiser adresssed everyone in Spanish and the boats sped away to a new starting point. About half of the divers and commissioners with them, thought the competition had started and sped off to begin diving.

After about 1/2 and hour these people were recalled and penalised 1 hour for false starting....."

Take note: Tony Heugh is from Australia and supports that country's team!

Jaco Blignaut, the diver concerned, is an experienced diver - came 13th in the Worlds in 2002 and is 5 times South African champ! He knows the rules!

The issue seems to be, is a drop weight against the rules? I read through all the rules on the official website (though translated from spanish by Google) but cannot get close to it being illegal. The rule that keeping fish, or stringing fish to your body had originally been made of course to prevent accidents as to being bitten by sharks and like predators! The question is asked - if a spearo may be so good that he can shoot a fish at 30m, remove, reload and shoot another fish, must he be penalised? The "Jaco Blignaut incident" will have to be resolved clearly before another Worlds. There should be a clear ruling on the use of dropweights! To make rules and or judge on the fly sucks! It is a blatant lie to allege that the diver strung fish to his body as was reported in most media. The drop weight stringer was the real issue!

Jaco Blignaut - the diver concerned - would have taken second place overall if the ruling was not against him! Despite that ALL his points for the first day was disallowed, he still managed an overall 14th place! Impressive!

Other diver's opinions on the "Jaco Blignaut incident" would be welcomed! (For a diver to lose second place is surely hard to accept)

..... The issue here seems to be is a dropweight allowed? No opinions - written rules are what count (in transparent law)
 
Thank you Des for your posting, I had heard some stories about the incident but reading in your post what had happened was quite instructional, to say the least.

I agree that this topic about Jaco's disqualification is going to be controversial.
I admire his plan and the risks he took by breathing from that air pocket, but he should have just attached his buoy line to that drop weight and use that line as the stringer, I guess that with this he could have pulled it off both staying under as he had planned and probably not getting disqualified.

The rules, as far as I remember, state that stringer has to be on the buoy and that the fish goes there, and from there to the boat or boat assistant.

I expect intressting discussions around this topic!.

Cheers

Roberto
 
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Reactions: Mr. X
Hi Roberto (& others)

More info on the Jaco Blignaut incident (World Spearfishing Championhips 2008).
Now that the South African team is back in their country, I had the opportunity to speak prersonally to Jaco Blignaut about his disqualification. It is worse than I thought. He was indeed disqualified for "fishstringer with fish on waist". That is how he was informed when they told him he was disqualified. The "dropweight" argument thus does actually not come into play!
The first time Jaco heard of his disqualification was when they called out his number and he went to the stage and weighed his fish, he was informed that he had been disqualified for having a fishstringer on his waist. As can be imagined Jaco protested and wanted to relate his side of the story but they said that the judges had made their ruling and that it stands. So much for a fair hearing! In South Africa we proud ourselves on our fair judicial system and we find this to be a flagrant biased, ignorant, non transparent and perhaps mischievous miscarriage of justice. IN WHAT civilised country is the "accused" not given a chance to at least give an explanation to allegations made against him?
Roberto, your suggestion regarding attaching the buoy line to the weight stringer is just a small technical "adjustment" to circumvent a perceived transgression of a rule. Jaco was not given a chance to even put forward this or any other defense whatsoever. So even if he did, as you said he should have done, they would still have found him "guilty" without taking any other possibility of what might have happened into account. Note must also be taken that the "commissioner" (judge) on Jaco's boat, when he saw the stringer for the first time he informed Jaco that he was not allowed to put it on his waist. Jaco explained what his plan was with the dropweight stringer and he did not have any objection to it. At no stage did he say, confirm or attest to the fact that Jaco had a bodystringer used illegally. It seems that the only proof that was put forward, was allegations (a slip of paper?) made by the two Chilleans from one boat! Any competitor has the right to "complain" but the handling of the Jaco Blignaut incident by the judges, from the outside, seems to be a grossly ineptitude of the persons concerned to follow sound and fair principles and practices.
The false start on the second day that lead to many competitors being penalised seems to be the result of bad organising. I feel for those guys as well – it was not your fault and you could perhaps have done much better than you did if you had not been penalised!
To be fair, the judges should be given the opportunity to voice their side of the disqualification incident on this open forum! Judges, you are invited to answer the questions that arraise out of this incident!! (It is acknowledged that there might be some facts and actions that so far have not come out in the open and had a bearing on the decision?)

Cheers & hoping for some answers

Happy spearing!
(being biased)
Des
 
I dont want to spoil your debate by deviating from the subject but i cant help being amazed with the determination of someone who dives into a cave & breathes in air from a pocket, reloads his gun numerable times & shoots more fish!!
How deep was the cave, how did the air get trapped in there?
 
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Thanks, Spaghetti for your good job on the Spearfishing World Championship!

W Italy!!!
 
Reactions: spaghetti
pretty cool situation, using that air pocket...i must say its kind of dangerous though right?..its almost like scuba, you are breathing air at depth..also if the air has been trapped there for a long time, could be contaminated and cause breathing problems..
agree with des, seems unfair if the disqualification happened that fast without hearing from the hunter ir the judge..maybe have an underwater judge in future comps
 
Hey guys
Take note, I was not there at the comps and also did not establish if the cave & airpocket "operation" that was mentioned actually took place during the comp.
What my gripe is, is the FALSE accusation made against the South African diver that he had a waist-stringer with fish! How stupid would ANY spearo be to do such a thing! How and where he speared the fish is besides the point. Secondly, the handling of the incident by the judges - it sucks to say the least! (On a technical point: the CMAS regulations - as I read it - require that the decision of the judges should be made in writing to the offending participant - which was also not done in the Jaco Blignaut incident - but as said, a technicality!)
Good done!!!! - to the guys in the top positions! You deserved it! It was a difficult comp with very few fish!
(ANY person wanting the CMAS spearfishing regulations OR Venezuela regulations for the comp, can just ask me to forward it to you! I can find NO regulation regarding stringers in the CMAS version, and ONLY one mention in the Venezulaen regulations that waiststringers are forbidden)
Nice day for all!! Keep the good work going Spaghetto! :t
 
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