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World championship Chile

Thread Status: Hello , There was no answer in this thread for more than 60 days.
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Niko-DK

New Member
Nov 17, 2003
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Hallo everybody

I have been looking for some info/results about the World Championship just been held in Chile. BUT I CANT FIND ANYTHING !!!

Anybody have a link or the resultlist ?

Nikodk
 
Order of placement, first to last:
I have numbers listed here

Chile
Italy
Spain
Portugal
Croatia
France
USA
Tahiti
Peru
Grece
Brazil
Venezuela
Ukraine
Sudafrica
Denmark
Slovenia
New Zealand
Russia
Finland
Argentina
England
Australia
 
The results are :

Team's ranking
1º Chile 185.560 ptos
2º Italia 181.020 ptos
3º España 135.980 ptos
4º Portugal 113.400 ptos
5º Croacia 90.440 ptos
6º Francia 81.580 ptos
7º EEUU 70.280 ptos
8º Tahiti 67.420 ptos
9º Perú 63.320 ptos
10º Grecia 51.700 ptos

Individual ranking
1º Stefano Bellani 76.320 ptos
2º Ludwin Duarte 67.420 ptos
3º Franco Bósquez 62.580 ptos
4º Di Silvertri 62.120 ptos
5º José Viña 54.160 ptos
6º Da Silva 44.200 ptos
7º Lay Ahumada 43.780 ptos
8º Santiago Cid 42.580 ptos
9º Ramasoti 42.580 ptos
10º Pedro Carbonell 39.240 ptos
 
You guys are fast,thanks for the updates, 9th place ind. by the way is Ramacciotti (Maurizio). It's easy to butcher those long Italian last names...

My impressions:

Our US team ranking is getting better every world championship
in recent years and that we beat Tahiti and almost beat France says a hell of a lot. I haven't seen the points spread yet but considering we beat Greece, always a top contender and the rest of the Anglosaxon countries like South Africa and Australia and New Zealand also is indicative of huge improvement. I am really glad to see that. I think that the growth in the sport in the last six years has fostered more competitive US spearfishing team and a stronger Nationals program. Bigger more organized teams attending as opposed to less than ten years ago when the only guys who went were the US team members themselves, usually Bill and John Ernst and the Maguire brothers, footing all the bills out of pocket as well.

First reaction is a lot of people's surprise Stefano Bellani beat out Pedro Carbonel, we all thought the guy was unbeatable on a world championship level. Having been the only one to beat the great champions (Jose Amengual-Spain/Renzo Mazzari both with 3 world championships), most people figured he was the Lance Armstrong of spearfishing for years to come.

On second thought however Stefano placed 1st at European Championships in Lagos last year (the tournament that determines the team members for each European nation usually) and the other time he beat him in Arbatax in Sardinia already as well. In a nutshell, the ex Omer ex Picasso and now Italian color carrier for the Cressi Team is in his best form in decades of spearfishing as this result shows. A monster in the deep and fast rhythm hunter in the shallows, it's a well deserved first for him. Also glad to see Bruno De Silvestri in 4th place, since he's from my old home island of Sardinia.
An amazing deep grouper hunter in clear water, I'm surprised to see him adapt so well to murky cold conditions. Jose Vina of Spain back on top too is interesting, if I recall he won in Iquique Chile before favoring these conditions.

http://62.152.107.252/apneamagazine/allegati/news22062004.pdf

Looks like Chile had the obvious home court advanatage but that they could defend their turf from Italy,Spain and France really says a lot. That the USA was one place behind France is just awesome!

Ted Buyon if you read this-11th place for your countrymen??
common I'm not impressed;-) your boy Paulo Pacheco got spanked or maybe he wasn't there. Didn't even see him in the top ten. Congrats to Dennis Haussler, Bob Humphrey and Mile Maguire for a nice meet, the US womens team for 2nd place, and the amazing support they got from veterans team Capt. Rene Rojas, Bill Ernst and Mike Maguire who I'm sure helped them a lot.

This is a link with some photos of Stefano Bellani after his win at the last Europeans. Scott T, sure you missed being there, I hear the reception the athletes received exceeded even the world meet in Tahiti parade.

http://www.apneamagazine.com/articolo.php/569

Mark
 
Hey Mark:
I just copied the list from another page, without knowing if the names are spelled correctly! Thanks for the correction, I am sure that it is appreciated by Maurizio too :).

The first day of the competition the spanish team set a complaint, cause Vina's boat suffered ''misterious'' failures in the engine, they said that the engine would start or stop working due to the desires and ''touch'' of the boat's driver....and that this was done in order to affect Vina (he lost one hour of competition, but even with this he managed to finish 3rd, in the first day).

It's also said that the italians really fished in the rocky bottoms, in the holes, and they did good so.

During the first day, there was another controversy, cause the chilean's captain decided to leave Lay (locar diver) as the reserve diver, even if Lay had placed 3rd in the previous days' chilean ranking to determine the team.
Well, Lay did dive on the 2nd day replacing a team member and he alone did 43780 points! While Bellani did 76320 in the two days...now people over there are wondering what if he would have participated the two days...maybe he would have been the champion. We will never know.

Cheers to all the spearos,

Roberto
 
Hey Mark!

The point spreads are in the link in my post for all teams & in rcerdena's for teams/individual top-10.
 
Just another info:
Pacheco from Brasil didn't make it to the championship cause he didn't classified in the top 4 of the brasilian ranking...

Cheers

Roberto
 
Thanks for the info...

Hmm Denmark no. 15 not very impressing...

Any chance to get the total individual resultlist ?

Nikodk
 
Finland...19th......:-[
Auch!

Well...next time then....if we ever qualify again.

Sad day.

M
 
Hi Roberto! Fuzz- I see the points now

Its normal in spearfishing tournaments and especially on the world level to have soap operas come out of it with everybody trying to point fingers or start a cause. Even in our tournaments in the US three years ago Scoot Turgeon was accused of stuffing his fish in a lobster pot the day before the meet or something rediculous of that sort because he had stuck his fish in distilled water to try to keep their body weight up after spearing them and they lost their color faster and became pale. People are always pointing fingers in these tournaments and it really does put a damper on a smoothly and well deserved win for the individual or teams who participate.

I guess there is good reason for skepticism sometimes since in
the last worlds in Chile (92or94?) the French Team was disqualified from participating because they were still scouting the day before the meet which was a rest day. They found the French captain hiding underneath the tarp of one of the pangas that got boarded. A few years before they were also caught feeding the sargos by burying food under the sand near their holes. Its illegal to feed fish in CMAS world sanctioned spearfishing events, although it isn't here in the USA yet. In Tahiti Andrew Geist, top American in Tahiti in 9th place, had the captain of the French team as observer on his boat who was supposed to be acting as an observer and upon seeing how well Andrew was doing he called over his team on the radio to come jump Andrew's spot...
I'm not purposely picking on the french here but these were three instances I heard of that were funny. In the Worlds in Gijon in Spain (96) they accidently announced Pepe Vina as the winner and then realized they made a mistake and reannounced Pedro Carbonel. American John Ernst speared the biggest fish in the tournament that meet, a Dentex. At the European champs. in Arbatax in Sardinia a few years ago Spain called Italy o cheating because of grey areas in the boundaries. In Croatia in the 98' world meet the French or the Italian teams was disqualified. It was also at this meet where American Gerald Lim speared the biggest fish of the tournament, a Dusky grouper. As you can see drama is the name of the game, they're worse than professional soccer players rofl

The first day of the competition the spanish team set a complaint, cause Vina's boat suffered ''misterious'' failures in the engine, they said that the engine would start or stop working due to the desires and ''touch'' of the boat's driver....and that this was done in order to affect Vina (he lost one hour of competition, but even with this he managed to finish 3rd, in the first day).

I don't know if I buy that either, I'm sure Chile wanted to try to avoid any controversy if possible since they were hosting. A hosting team trying to cheat other teams wouldn't make for good hospitality. I'm just sharing my opinion, anyway, I'll post some pictures of the meet if I can find some from Italy.

Mark
 
A few pictures from Italian media coverage

Here's the cover of the local Newspaper in Iquique Chile and some pictures of Bellani and the Italian team.
 

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I just returned from chile, over 30 hours of traveling and my luggage got lost in frankfurt and I smashed a liquer in my handluggage at the leaving day...

But any way it was nice, the next time we bring waterproff gps for scouting and digi kam for taking marks so you can find the fucking caves again...

We found quite a lot of caves during the scouting with several big mulatta +3,5 kg (the ones bealinni shot first day) but we where unable to find them

The competition was absolutely fair, each team got a farst a medium and a slow boat. We got the best boat. So no big nations where favored.
And the chilean had boat crew from other nations so they didn´t get any help either.
A funny story: one of the danish divers official (the one who is supposed to see he dos not cheat) found a dead fish floating in the water. He collected it and put it in his bag... He had to insist that it got removed, and they kept the fish in the boat for them selves A reason for disqualification
 
Mark,

Your right about me wanting to make the team again bad (except this time as a diving member and not just the alternate). It's about my sole mission in life for the next year (just got back from the pool for my lunchtime training session). After Hawaii, I have a chance. You're also right about the drama involved in this sport. I think Murphy's win is about the only one I can remember in the 6 years I've been involved in this sport where nobody was mumbling under their breath that he cheated. When it happened to me I was pretty upset and took it rather personally but I've since come to realize that finger pointing is just a part of this sport. Hell, at this year’s Nationals alone there were 2 formal protests filed accusing 2 different divers of cheating. Both were dismissed by the committee after voting.

Congrats to Stefano and to all the divers who did well and of course especially to Team USA!!!!!!!!

Scott
 
The US needs to develope a bigger support base to our team. Thanks Mark and all others who continually help our sport.

Scott, hope to see you make the team and do well.
 
Scott- I had an interesting conversation with Bill Ernst this afternoon. He just got back from Chile and we talked about what it would take to host the worlds here one day. We're still far from that he thinks because of the need to have 100 boats of equal speed and power etc etc. A place like Florida in the Keys would just be perfect for everyone. It would be good for everyone, clear waters and all depths to make it a fair game instead of diving in a mud-hole.

Uvjagt did I get that name right? finally someone who participated. Sorry to
hear about that team who got disqualfied because of the judge on the boat, if I understood that right. What a fiasco. So who shot the biggest fish?

Rig- Thanks but I'm more of a close spectactor/special interest party in the competitive side since I'm involved in the industry. I don't have the time to devote to competing like these guys. When I do I'm out in da blue you know... It's just been great watching the sport grow and the US program become more competitive over the years. Literally 7-8 years ago it was only John and Bill Ernst, the Maguire's, Gerald Lim, and a few others who even knew about it footing the bill to all the meets. There was an article in Outdside magazine once about the US guys and how they had all the odds against them each world meet. They were basically like the Jamaican bob sled team. Today more competition is making the US a stronger program-sort of like our growing US soccer program. Contrary to what people might think however, after checking the Italian online newspapers monday, there was not even one word about an Italian being crowned World Spearfishing Champion, goes to show you how in the eyes of mainstream media even in Italy where there's a bigger number of active spearfisherman per thousand people ours is still a side-line sport. The only thing I hope will change that needs to change in these tournaments is the safety issue and how to mix safety conscious rules into the mix while maintaining competitiveness. Well, sorry for the earful, good night!

Mark
 
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Hi guys!

I'd like to congratulate Stefano and the rest of the Italians for the tough fight in uncommon conditions! The young generation of competitive spearos in Europe knows that the "azzuri" are a great factor they must always have in mind, but 2nd place and an individual world title!? Noone really expeted that! And this once again proves what a hard job Stefano and Bruno have invested in this event.
Now i haven't been there and I only have 2nd hand news and opinions, but as for the Chileans, they surely had their home advantage - they have never lost a home event and there were 2 more in the past - in 83 - won by Alejandro Flores and one in 7? (I have the exact years at home), taken by Raul Choque. They were the most probable winner. But this does not diminish their success in any way! As a matter of fact the decision of Tapia to remove Lay Ahumada (a competitor local to Iquique) was quite bizzarre and could have cost them the cup. I hear it may cost Edwin Tapia his post as a captain, though. Now I am not sure about the exat reasons for this decision - to give fair chance to the other Chileans or some other reasons within the team? I heard speculations that the other Iquiqean who got replaced by Lay Ahumada faked his equalisation / otitis problems to give his comrade a chance, but I think this is not true. His ranking during the first day was quite poor and I don't think he'd compromise the whole team for this pupose. Great work for the Chileans and espeacially for Lay Ahumada who served the teams cup to Chile on a plate with his performance during the 2nd day. Amazing really!
As for the rumors about Vina's boat - now this can't be serious. The boats during CMAS events are randomly distributed by a lot. I am sure that's how it has been done in Chile too... The only complaint the Spaniards may file is that the organizers were unable to provide Pepe with a replacement boat. But their overall ranking speaks for itself. I think most of the recent events have been held in places favouring their best skills. But even in completely unfamiliar and inconvenient waters, they managed to get the bronze - well done, really!
Now I am quite surprised by the poor performance of the Peruvians. As far as I know, there was a WC held in Peru just few miles from Iquique where the conditions are more or less identical. Here's a fact: This particular championship in Peru was one of the most controversial and was shadowed by political issues. Several teams (Bulgaria included, btw) boycotted the event because of the decision of the organizers to allow South Arfrica to participate. The reason for the boycott was the Apatheid.
Now what do you think about France? The only name I do recognize in the team is Gerard Segura (sp?). I don't know which federation they represented - the FNPSA or the FFESSM? They did OK though! Now I would never speak less of the French team - they have very different conditions in different parts of the country and in order to qualify for the National team the competitor should really be a pro in any spearfishing skill. I had the chance them participating on few occasions with different teams and those guys are good. The only time I saw a French competitor looking a bit out of place was when they included a guy from Martinique (or some other island there) to gain experience in European waters. Well... he didn't do well... :)
I am quite sad our guys from Bulgaria did not participate, even though they qualified for the WC. The reasons are within our own Federation, and this makes it even worse! The conditions in Chile are quite similar to the ones we have here in May and June. We are quite skilful in hunting in the surf and in murky waters. And the mullets are our prime target - we are the Mullet Gods. :) I can only speculate about this, but I think we would have made the top 10 for sure and with a bit of luck we might have ranked the top 6. By the way, during the scouting/training days of that championship in Peru I mentioned, we were always among the top 4.

Once again congratulations to all the competitors who participated and to the organizers for what I hear was a perfect World Championship!

Cheers!
 
Mark Laboccetta said:
There was an article in Outdside magazine once about the US guys and how they had all the odds against them each world meet. They were basically like the Jamaican bob sled team.

Here's the article Mark referenced in his post, pretty nice read:

http://outside.away.com/magazine/0795/7f_zen.html

Can someone post the full individual results other than the top ten? I'm interested to see where the third Spaniard placed.
 
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I didn't see it mentioned in this thread but the water temp was 57 to 62 degrees and the surface warmed quickly when the sun came out. The visibility that I saw ranged from 8 to over 20 feet. Fish were abundant but generally too small and very skittish.
Chauggie
 
Where is Alberto March? He did not compete? Injured or what?? :hmm
 
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