Surface Protocol: changes needed?

[rxcnc2]

I open a new thread as a continuation of a several posts which started here http://forums.deeperblue.com/general-freediving/83949-youngest-competitors-world-champs.html and that were getting quite OT.
Somebody mentioned PBMM, an explanation followed, and from there several people argued that the current AIDA SP leaves space for some ambiguities. There were some suggestions on how to make the SP more objective and at the same time "harder". Some others argued there was no need for change. I think it's a very interesting discussion, but probably we should leave the "youngest competitors" alone and continue here.

 

[rxcnc2]

Because of the discussion on the surface protocol, I thought a little on the surface protocol. I do not think that making the surface protocol more complicated will result in fewer black outs. I think it will lead to more disqualifications. At least in big competitions, athletes will go to and over the edge to get to finals or get medals. What ever you will do to the surface protocol will not change their mindset at the actual attempt. They will only train harder on the new surface protocol. Because of the complication, there will be a lot more disqualification on SP, especially among new athletes and in small competitions. This can be very discouraging for those people.

I think that keeping the surface protocol as it is, perhaps with the addition that an athlete needs to keep his head from the chin up completely out of the water, is enough. If you push it to far, you will be disqualified. To add all kinds of signs with different hands will only needlessly complicate matters for the athlete and the judge, will push the importance to the surface protocol instead of the actual performance, will mostly be a hindrance to inexperienced athletes and will result in a lot of good performances being disqualified on stupid technicalities. I think that will be bad for the sport.

You are right that more DQ doesn't mean necessarily less BO. But apart from avoiding BO (which ultimately is up to the athlete), the issue here is also fairness. Disqualification for PBMM is subjective, and has as been pointed out very clearly some athletes get white and others get red under very similar circumstances.

It's good to disagree with the solutions proposed, but in my opinion some changes are needed to make the SP more objective than it currently is.

 

[trux]

Thanks for moving it to a separate thread, rxcnc2.

I completely agree with Arjen. As for reducing the number of BO and LMC, I believe that only punitive bans similarly as the French FFESSM does, would help. It seems to work pretty well. I do not have any statistics at hand, but from personal experience would tell that the number of BO's is quite significantly lower than at AIDA. It may differ at the WC at the end of the season, where competitors have to risk anyway, and the 3 or 6 months long ban is no more important, but generally blackouts are relatively rare at French competitions.

On the other hand, I believe only few AIDA freedivers would support such rule. It is likely not a viable solution.

As for making the judging more objective, while avoiding that competitors who black out during or after protocol, but manage to keep the head over water: perhaps hanging on ropes or pool edges should be forbidden. You should be only allowed to hold it, but not laying on it in the way that it supports you above water even if you are dead. But then again, where exactly is the borderline between laying on it and holding it - it could be another subjective issue hard to judge.

 

[Arjen]

As for reducing the number of BO and LMC, I believe that only punitive bans similarly as the French FFESSM does, would help. It seems to work pretty well.

I can understand a disqualification on a BO, although I'm not in favor of it, but a disqualification on LMC would be absolute b0ll0cks.

Some people are nervous and will tremble always. Doesn't matter if they do 25 meters or 150 meters. I have my LMC in my neck, shoulders and hands primarily, but I also know freedivers that have their LMC in their legs. They can hide their LMC easily, while I can not. How do you differantiate in a fair way between these cases?

I have also seen a lot of atheletes in small competitions that had a mouthdip, because they were inexperianced or stupid. That will be written down by the judge as BO with the current rules. Al least as far as I understand. Will they be banned from competition for a few months as well? Because in the results it will show the same as someone who had a full blown BO. How can AIDA see the difference.

I do not like to see a lot of black outs and it would be good that all performances, BO's included, would be added to the rankings, but it is part of the sport. Lets not fool ourselfs that it isn't. It is not something we should be saying black outs are a good thing and you should get one, anything but that. We should try to train all new freedivers to avoid BO's. But our sport is develloping very fast at the moment and a lot of competitors are trying to find the extreme edge of their capabilities. I think we will see a lot of black outs the coming years and I do not think we can do a lot in the SP to change this.

 

[trux]

I do not like to see a lot of black outs and it would be good that all performances, BO's included, would be added to the rankings, but it is part of the sport. Lets not fool ourselfs that it isn't.

As I see here in France, not necessarily. I've been quite shocked when I went to my first competition abroad, and saw 10 blackouts among 50 competitors at the first discipline. So there is a serious difference - in France, even at AIDA competitions where no bans are used (but competitors are the same as at FFESSM events), I use to see none or perhaps in some cases one or two blackouts.

I agree that LMC and blackouts are unavoidable, but seeing so many blackouts certainly does not make the sport any good advertisement. It is something else when it is an exceptional accident, and when it happens to every second competitor. And I know from personal experience that the negative image we are getting through media reports and spectators feedback, already caused a lot of harm and repelled many potential freedivers. I know also about cases where parents and partners pushed freedivers to abandon the sport, after they saw such incidents.

Personally, I am not really advocate of the same ban system, but think that AIDA should try doing something to make the BO and LMC more scary for competitors.

As for fairly judging LMC - I think that the proposal not to allow laying on a support (line, float, pool edge), but rather just holding it, would help here too. If you have LMC in hands, in legs, or in respiratory muscles, you will have more troubles to complete your protocol and not dipping back underwater, if you can't use the support to hold you.

 

[Arjen]

As for fairly judging LMC - I think that the proposal not to allow laying on a support (line, float, pool edge), but rather just holding it, would help here too. If you have LMC in hands, in legs, or in respiratory muscles, you will have more troubles to complete your protocol and not dipping back underwater, if you can't use the support to hold you.

I think that is a very bad idea. Almost all competitors have weighted themselves to be neutral with a full inhale and packing. If they can not hold onto something they will have a great difficulty with the SO, no matter if they are hypoxic or not, because they will be negativily bouyant.

And here we also get into the very subjective matter on what "holding" really is. I "hold" stuff under my arms all the time.

I also think the high number of black outs is because of the nature of this particular competition. It were the world championships. Everybody on every level wanted to get the maximum out of their dive, wanted to do at least a very big PB. Than the high number of black outs can be expected. It is the worlds, nobody is going to quit if it feels bad, you will fight!

Again, I'm not a fan of BO's, I already had one to many myself. I prefer nice white cards, I think that freedivers should be taught to not push themself that far, but in big competitions we are also highly competitive and want to get the most out of our bodies and minds. That is what we train for in the end. That is what we like to do. Otherwise we would not be in competitions.

 

[pim]

I have also seen a lot of atheletes in small competitions that had a mouthdip, because they were inexperianced or stupid. That will be written down by the judge as BO with the current rules. Al least as far as I understand. Will they be banned from competition for a few months as well? Because in the results it will show the same as someone who had a full blown BO. How can AIDA see the difference.

How do we know the differance? Simply because a mouthdip shouldn't be written down as BO but as airways/mouth/etc....

BO should only be written when it is a full BO, they should write BO PBOMM if there is a DQ for post black-out mech.movement.

So I think it is more a judge education thing then changing surface protocol....

Grtzzzzzz Pim

 

[trux]

Yes, I know it is not easy, and I mentioned it too. However hanging / laying on the pool edge for example in statics is completely unnecessary. In dynamics, even being weighted to be negatively buoyant, holding on a support should be sufficient to keep you afloat.

And when I spoke about higher ratio of BO/LMC at competitions abroad in comparison to France, I did not speak about the WC, where they are indeed more to be expected. I compared same level competitions.

If we start perceiving BO and LMC not as an incident, but as something completely usual, we risk to see more and more of them, and not only in competitions, but also during trainings. And as the later discussed study shows, there is a possibility such states may not be as harmless as we tend to believe. So I think any measure that reduces the number of BO/LMC is welcome.

 

[Arjen]

If we start perceiving BO and LMC not as an incident, but as something completely usual, we risk to see more and more of them, and not only in competitions, but also during trainings. And as the later discussed study shows, there is a possibility such states may not be as harmless as we tend to believe. So I think any measure that reduces the number of BO/LMC is welcome.

Here I completely agree with reducing the BO's, but I think this is something that has to be addressed in courses and in training groups. In the end this says something about the mentality of the athlete and nothing else. You can change whatever you want in the rules, but when the mentality of athletes is to go up to and over the edge, they will do that no matter what. They will just train to make sure that any new protocol will become second nature, just like they do now.

I'm not that convinced that there is anything we can do or should do on LMC's, because here we enter a highly subjective matter that is different from person to person and is percieved different from judge to judge.

You also have to make sure that someone who has an incidental BO, is not penalized the same as someone who has them more often. It will require quite a lot of administration.

Just to add, I'm playing devil's advocate here.

 

[trux]

Right, I agree that protocol will barely change the number of blackouts. In contrary, threat of a ban could (as we see in France).

The changes of protocol here were not really sugested to reduce the number of BO/LMC, but to make the protocol more objective, less depending on individual judges. While today, you can be in a terrible state, but if you drilled enough your surface protocol, you'll do it even while blacking out, and if you hang properly on the support, you won't even dip underwater. It is then only up to the judge to disqualify you if he/she can detect the PBMM. If laying/hanging on the support were not permitted, these BO or heavy LMC cases would not manage keep above the surface without help, so would be disualified without the need for the subjective PBMM rule.

I know the proposed solutions are not ideal at all, and bring other problems, but already discussing it here and trying to find better ways, is important. I'd tell better then simply telling let's live with it as it is.

 

[rxcnc2]

I think that is a very bad idea. Almost all competitors have weighted themselves to be neutral with a full inhale and packing. If they can not hold onto something they will have a great difficulty with the SO, no matter if they are hypoxic or not, because they will be negativily bouyant.

I also think that a solid support is not only to be permitted, but essential. Imagine a marathon runner that is not allowed to sit down at the end of the 42km. Actually, I would ban multiple lanes with no solid support... but I know this is hard to push through because the show is so good.

So I think it is more a judge education thing then changing surface protocol....

The present SP can be completed even with samba. Then some judges will give a red card for PBMM, and some won't. So in a sense you are right that it's about uniformity of judgement... but if we don't reach that (and I am afraid we won't) then a change in SP is the alternative.

 

[pehtran]

There is no convencing arguments against "mouth under water" rule so far.
Trux, you say, that "the changes of protocol here were not really sugested to reduce the number of BO/LMC, but to make the protocol more objective, less depending on individual judges." I agree completly and I see it as a vote in favour of "mouth under water" rule. One thing: it is very easy to judge and second thing: in my opinion it will not result in more BO-s. Why? I do not think you can have much worse samba or PBMM or whatever you call it as it was the case with the guy from Finnland in the B-finals DYN, and get away with it. Most athleets were sinking bellow the surface with a lot milder conditions. And his case would then be the worst possible case with the white card under the new rules. And he got a white card even now under the existing rule so where is the problem? You can not have a BO and stay above the surface and complete the protocol, no way. I wonder which athleet can decide at the end of the performance to go for a small BO or samba because it will be allowed. Either you are OK or you are not.
So keep the protocol as it is or maybe even shorten it from 15 seconds to 10 and just be sure not to dip your mouth under the surface. Does anyone think that this might result in more BO-s? It would certainly take away a lot of subjectivity and preasure from the judges.
Miha

 

[osusim]

The solution is ban of all FFESSM members from AIDA competitions, they too good for that. And stop drinking trax, you became annoying ...

 

[trux]

The solution is ban of all FFESSM members from AIDA competitions, they too good for that. And stop drinking trax, you became annoying ...

Hehe, I am annoying even without drinking, you should already know it

 

[B-J]

During WC I heard one freedivers suggestion to keep the judging super-simple, and subjective. When the athlete surfaces he/she only has to keep the airways above water. As easy as that. This will make the judging more concistent and fair. The only little detail would be to make yourself visible to the judge.
What do you have to do to get a white card? Keep your head above water!!

If you want an athlete to avoid a BO, don`t make him do more difficult and challenging things, make him understand there will be consequences:rcard if he does have a BO.

 

[pehtran]

"Airways above surface" with no protocol is worth reconsidering although I think we should keep the protocol. The importaint think is that the protocol most probably forces the athleet to surface some ten or so meters before his total limit.
I know from myself and from talking to others that the PBMM rule did not achieve its intention because it does not make an athleet surface any sooner then before.

Inflation of complicated rules killed the formula 1 racing. We should not introduce the rules that try to limit or even erase the very essence of the sport. Some athleets are blacking out from exhaustion on marathons or triathlons. They are praised for going to their limits. I do not know of any sport that is not to some extent unhealthy when reaching the top level results. Excesive packing might be more dangerous then a BO and yet we allow it. When you have a World Championship of the best divers you have to accept a certain gladiatorship otherwise we might just get together every two years and have fun in the pool and later in the caffeteria.

Do not forget: that is all just my opinion and I might be wrong...

Miha

 

[DivingDane]

Im a newbie AIDA judge and dont have a heap of experience but the following i think are worthy of noting.

- we need a definative rule for black out (airways under)
- a definative rule that says a person is "there" (surface protocol) even if it is automatic, the body still has to initiate that automated sequence.
- maybe making the protocol similar to (god forbid) CMAS with the diver touching a specific object (e.g. a yellow ball on a small stand placed at the edge of the pool) would avoid the automation issue.


certain things such as a persons head dropping and hitting the side of the pool would be considered black out if it were up to me because they have temporarily black out although not technically needing help. a person could still hit the side of the pool which could wake them up and finish the protocol but it would be clear that the person was not awake initially.

any other movements of the head etc should not be penalised.

in essence we need to make sure a diver has comeup under his own power and can maintain his airways clear on his own, this shows the essence of a pure dive in may opinion.

personally i think a truely good dive is when a diver pushes his abbility but in a controlled way, surfaces smoothly and under control and can show he is "there" the entire time this is may idea of a clean dive, i'm not a huge fan of "close call" dives with Big SAMBA but still completing surface protocol to get a white card. However that is the rule as it stands and i judge by these rules happily.

DD

 

[pim]

I also think that a solid support is not only to be permitted, but essential. Imagine a marathon runner that is not allowed to sit down at the end of the 42km. Actually, I would ban multiple lanes with no solid support... but I know this is hard to push through because the show is so good.

.....

Uhhhh, the last marathon runners want to do after 42km is to sit down, if you do sit down you will pay the price the day after....all acid's/etc should be out of body first so you jog/cycle/etc to clean the legs.

I tried it a couple of times not to cool down properly and you feel paralized more or less or feel like having wooden boards taped to your legs :crutch




Multiple lanes is ok, this is what makes finals a thriller!!!! Maybe freedivers should not only spend time training so they are able to do the SP while being on/over their limit but also spend time making something as releasing neck weight 1...2s before resurfacing (as some already do) or learn to come up 'backwards' and hook on support line (as some already do). As safety diver, judge, organizer (and former athlete) I would love to see more athletes dropping weights just before surfacing!

Pooledges are actualy a potential danger coming up extremely hypoxic....I have seen several (self inflictic) injuries due to this....then rather dip airways and DQ as freediving is not boxing/feighting/etc where we need blood to have a good competition.


just my thoughts of the morning at work :friday

 

[CEngelbrecht]

There are three other items in the surfacing I wish to point out, that might need rethinking.

* The verbal OK could be cancelled from the surface protocol.
I heard this suggested the first time during the 2007 individual depth worlds in Sharm, and it still makes sense for me. Keep the removal of facial equipment and the visual hand-OK, but remove the need for uttering 'I'm OK'. Especially during the 8-people-simultaneously finals (a format which I'm absolutely crazy about by now), the judges cannot hear the verbal OK anyway, and also lingual problems in the international community would be minimized by removing it.

* One could consider not defining a nose-clip as part of the facial equipment.
I have seen people forget to remove the nose clip during the protocol, even if it's a clear exit otherwise. Originally, the concept of removing the facial equipment is to be able to see the eyes of the athlete. The clip has nothing to do with that. DQ'ing an athlete with a perfect exit, but who forgot to remove their clip is one of the worst things for me to do as a judge.

* Touching the athlete.
In Aarhus, I saw this rule not enacted in full by the judges. Some were DQ'ed by a small touch, some were not. I have seen this conduct with judges before in the years past, and usually when a judge did not call a small violation of a standing rule, it's often not because of a corrupt judge and whatever, it's because the judge's head those seconds is going "this guy has just made an extraordinary dive, but his coach just removed his hand from his back a second too late, or the safety diver tapped him happily on the shoulder after his surfacing, or a friend high fived him in joy. The rules say I should disqualify, but it's such a good dive, and the touch didn't help him in any way, he's a good guy, I saw nothing". That's kind of crappy when judges don't follow the rules in full, but my experience is that the judges are not necessarily the problem. It's one rule or another that probably should change, because it doesn't aid the game, and the judge didn't want to spoil the party, whatever.

So, the touching rule could use some rethinking. With the danger of turning that judging element subjective, one can imagine that a 'non-aiding' touch can be allowed. A hand on the shoulder is acceptable, high five is acceptable, but helping the athlete stay clear of the water is not. This is something that can easily erode into more judging chaos (what is a hug?), but in Aarhus we saw some problems with the current standard, so I have to mention it.


I was told a good standard when defining rules in freediving some years ago. You should be able to at all times to explain the rules for any five-year old, or they should be able to see the logic in it themselves. With that kind of logic behind all rules, there's a good chance that both athletes and judges alike doesn't f... them up in a competition.

 

[rxcnc2]

Uhhhh, the last marathon runners want to do after 42km is to sit down

Multiple lanes is ok, this is what makes finals a thriller!!!! Maybe freedivers should not only spend time training so they are able to do the SP while being on/over their limit but also spend time making something as releasing neck weight 1...2s before resurfacing

Pooledges are actualy a potential danger coming up extremely hypoxic....I have seen several (self inflictic) injuries due to this....

Hi Pim, don't take it personally but I disagree with all of the above :t

You do see lots of people literally falling down after marathon or just even 800m. The point I am making is that they don't get disqualified for that. It is understood that they have spent all their energy. If they hurt their knee or have acid in their legs the next day it's their problem.
Along the same lines, we should not have exceedingly complex SP, we should not expect freedivers to look nice and photogenic after they finish a maximum dive. It is ok to have black lips, to shake a little, also to bang your nose on the pool edge it's your problem. Hey I almost broke my nose on the pool edge while swimming, not freediving. ok I am senile I know.

Now, if you are shaking out of control, then it is a problem, but I would like this to be applied objectively. What I think is not acceptable is that some SP gets white and some gets red, when the conditions are the same and the judges are different.

I am definitely in favor for stronger penalties for BO, but first we need to define what is a BO and again it must be objective, not judge-dependent. Mouth in the water is not necessarily BO: I read about Sessa's DNF SP... should that have been BO?

Floating lanes are dangerous. You cannot expect a freediver going for maximum to think about releasing his weight (just as Stig did not think about releasing his little finger-weight) unless he has trained a long time for it, and not everybody is training DNF with a floating lane. What if your weight lock doesn't release immediately? I realize multiple lanes are good for show, but they are dangerous. At the very least the safety diver should have a BIG floater and put it in the hands of the diver as soon as he/she surfaces.

CMAS yellow disk is not ideal. But what I like about CMAS protocol is that
a) you have to listen - if you are close to BO you will fail, and you cannot do it automatically like the AIDA SP
b) you don't have to talk. AIDA SP requires to interrupt your breathing just when you need it the most.

long email sorry.