There are some exciting news about the coming annual announcement of the World`s Absolute Freediver Award 2011 that will be announced in January 2012.
If you did not hear about the WAFA yet, it is a prize for the athletes who reached the maximum of points in the combination of six freediving disciplines (STA, DYN, DNF, CWT, CNF, FIM) in given calendar year. Result from competitions, as well as from official individual record attempts count. And the results from all freediving federations count too. There are several top athletes who partially compete under AIDA, and under CMAS, FIPSAS, FFESSM or another federation. APNEA.cz tries to remove the barriers between all those federations, and despite some minor differences in the rules, it considers all federations equal.
You can see the results of the last year WAFA at the following address: APNEA.cz - World's Absolute Freediver Award
The winners of the last WAFA were quite pleased by the new award. It helped some of them to attract the interest of sponsors. However, the only reward they got besides it, was the virtual award with no real prize attached. The exciting news mentioned at the beginning is that sponsors start to be interested in supporting the event. So this year, the winners will not only receive my personal congratulations like the last time, but also some nice prizes.
At this moment, there are three sponsors who promised their help. The first donor who will support the award in a form of material is an important player in the freediving business - Dessault. Currently they are specialized in equipment for spearfishing, but it looks like they understood that competitive freediving is a quickly developing discipline, and I would not be surprised if we see their products better tailored for pure freedivers in a near future. Their involvement in the sport is promising. The gifts for the winners were not specified yet, but I`ll announce them as soon as the information is available.
I was very pleased also by the offer of Scubapro / Uwatec who will donate two brand new Meridian diving computers for the top winners. It is a completely new amazing instrument, and I am sure it can be very helpful to the top winners. The Meridian is an advanced scuba and freediving computer with an integrated heart rate monitor coming in an attractive Swiss-designed watch case. It has more features useful to a freediver than practically any other computer on the market. Read more details about it in the previous article at APNEA.cz - Blog or check it out in the grand review of all freediving computers.
The third sponsor is APNEAMAN.cz resp. their FreediveShop.cz. They will donate their excellent nose-clips to everyone on the award list (2x 10 main awardees + 2 special prizes for the most diligent competitors), and probably some other useful product they manufacture.
And lastly, this year, inspired by the blog of Linda Paganelli of Freedive Dahab, I decided to add a special Chicken Award. She has the bad luck to have promised, in a weak moment, sponsoring it. She did not specify the prizes yet, but knowing her, I would expect a voucher for 100 hours of a free slave labor in the FDD store, 30 minutes of whipping with a lanyard (the one with a steel wire), or a ride with a liquid Vodka mask to 100m (her famous Vodka vision mask filled with real vodka as the physiologic fluid).
I still hope there will be other sponsors joining WAFA too, and adding more gifts, but already now it does not look bad. If any of you run a freediving oriented business and think the publicity of the award could help you, and if you can afford to donate some funds or some gifts, please write to sponsor@apnea.cz. Thank you!
The main problem remaining is the shipping. Considering the number of the awardees, and their locations all over the world, and considering the size of some of the gifts in discussion, the total shipping cost may easily surpass 1,000 € (although some of the gifts will be generously sent directly by the sponsors). Unfortunately APNEA.cz does not make any profit at all from the services it provides to the community, and hence cannot afford sponsoring the shipping. So if anyone of you could help, please click the Paypal button at the bottom of the page at Apnea.cz, to send some money to help funding the shipping of the prizes. Your name will be listed along the main sponsors, on the award page (unless you wish staying anonymous).
Thank you!
Ivo Truxa
le machiniste d'APNEA.cz
If you did not hear about the WAFA yet, it is a prize for the athletes who reached the maximum of points in the combination of six freediving disciplines (STA, DYN, DNF, CWT, CNF, FIM) in given calendar year. Result from competitions, as well as from official individual record attempts count. And the results from all freediving federations count too. There are several top athletes who partially compete under AIDA, and under CMAS, FIPSAS, FFESSM or another federation. APNEA.cz tries to remove the barriers between all those federations, and despite some minor differences in the rules, it considers all federations equal.
You can see the results of the last year WAFA at the following address: APNEA.cz - World's Absolute Freediver Award
The winners of the last WAFA were quite pleased by the new award. It helped some of them to attract the interest of sponsors. However, the only reward they got besides it, was the virtual award with no real prize attached. The exciting news mentioned at the beginning is that sponsors start to be interested in supporting the event. So this year, the winners will not only receive my personal congratulations like the last time, but also some nice prizes.
At this moment, there are three sponsors who promised their help. The first donor who will support the award in a form of material is an important player in the freediving business - Dessault. Currently they are specialized in equipment for spearfishing, but it looks like they understood that competitive freediving is a quickly developing discipline, and I would not be surprised if we see their products better tailored for pure freedivers in a near future. Their involvement in the sport is promising. The gifts for the winners were not specified yet, but I`ll announce them as soon as the information is available.
I was very pleased also by the offer of Scubapro / Uwatec who will donate two brand new Meridian diving computers for the top winners. It is a completely new amazing instrument, and I am sure it can be very helpful to the top winners. The Meridian is an advanced scuba and freediving computer with an integrated heart rate monitor coming in an attractive Swiss-designed watch case. It has more features useful to a freediver than practically any other computer on the market. Read more details about it in the previous article at APNEA.cz - Blog or check it out in the grand review of all freediving computers.
The third sponsor is APNEAMAN.cz resp. their FreediveShop.cz. They will donate their excellent nose-clips to everyone on the award list (2x 10 main awardees + 2 special prizes for the most diligent competitors), and probably some other useful product they manufacture.
And lastly, this year, inspired by the blog of Linda Paganelli of Freedive Dahab, I decided to add a special Chicken Award. She has the bad luck to have promised, in a weak moment, sponsoring it. She did not specify the prizes yet, but knowing her, I would expect a voucher for 100 hours of a free slave labor in the FDD store, 30 minutes of whipping with a lanyard (the one with a steel wire), or a ride with a liquid Vodka mask to 100m (her famous Vodka vision mask filled with real vodka as the physiologic fluid).
I still hope there will be other sponsors joining WAFA too, and adding more gifts, but already now it does not look bad. If any of you run a freediving oriented business and think the publicity of the award could help you, and if you can afford to donate some funds or some gifts, please write to sponsor@apnea.cz. Thank you!
The main problem remaining is the shipping. Considering the number of the awardees, and their locations all over the world, and considering the size of some of the gifts in discussion, the total shipping cost may easily surpass 1,000 € (although some of the gifts will be generously sent directly by the sponsors). Unfortunately APNEA.cz does not make any profit at all from the services it provides to the community, and hence cannot afford sponsoring the shipping. So if anyone of you could help, please click the Paypal button at the bottom of the page at Apnea.cz, to send some money to help funding the shipping of the prizes. Your name will be listed along the main sponsors, on the award page (unless you wish staying anonymous).
Thank you!
Ivo Truxa
le machiniste d'APNEA.cz
