|
|
The History, page 4
 Patrick Musimu caused some small controversy, when he, announced that he would attempt to breach 200 meters in No-Limits, but outside the supervision of any diving federation. On one last training attempt in June, Musimu reached 209 meters depth with his sled and successfully returned to the surface. Minutes after surfacing, he suffered symptoms of decompression sickness and received hyperbaric treatment, which cancelled the public attempt scheduled few days later.
 A major media event in 2005 was the IWC World Static Apnea Contest, held in Monaco in July and organized by Pierre Frolla. This was the biggest freediving event yet to date, in terms of exposure and cash price. It was broadcasted live via the Internet, and had 500 seated spectators, including Prince Albert of Monaco, that saw Stéphane Mifsud take 1st prize.
By now, CMAS had further developed their freediving formats, launching their own separate annual world championships. The Jump Blue format was still its only open water activity, now along with a dynamic apnea format virtually identical to that of AIDA’s. Still, the bulk of the world freedivers sought out AIDA venues, the CMAS events regarded as a side opportunity.
In 2006, freediving became subject to a peculiar and litigious media event. American street magician and endurance artist David Blaine, as part of a stunt in which he submerged himself in a water filled sphere for seven full days, also aimed to break Tom Sietas’ then Static world record of 8’58” as a big finale to his show; or though it wouldn’t be approved as an official world record by AIDA. In front of millions of TV viewers and thousands of spectators in New York, on May 1st Blaine held his breath, while simultaneously trying to escape from handcuffs. Onsite safety divers and co-organizers of the event Kirk Krack, Mandy-Rae Cruickshank and Martin Stepanek were forced to intervene, when the otherwise talented breath holder Blaine blacked out 7 minutes and 8 seconds into his dive.
By December 2006 the 5th AIDA Team World Championship was held in Hurghada, Egypt, seeing Denmark take gold medal in the men’s ranks, and a legendary Russian team claiming the women’s gold in a competition plagued by organizational problems.
In 2007, AIDA launched new guidelines for sled diving and by the summer Herbert Nitsch, who had now risen to dominate deep freediving, set out to reclaim the No-Limits record he had held twice before. He aimed to surpass Musimu’s unofficial, but widely acknowledged 209 meters dive in the increasingly dangerous discipline. During his four and a half minute long, now 703 feet deep dive (214 meters), the innovative Nitsch made use of deep-water breath hold decompression, ascending very slowly to avoid the dreaded “bends”. He surfaced unscathed and claimed the record in this the deepest form of freediving.
AIDA foresaw the 3rd Individual AIDA World Championships held in Maribor, Slovenia. This almost perfectly executed pool event saw the introduction of a new competition format, having A and B finals for the best 16 freedivers across elimination heats. Head to head with 7 other freedivers starting simultaneously, Stig Severinsen claimed two gold medals out of three possible in the finals, and Natalia Molchanova took a triple-gold clean sweep. So far, Molchanova had taken all available female gold medals at individual world championships, setting new world records every time and being unprecedented in dominance among the women.
 This was to change late in 2007 at the 4th Individual AIDA World Championships held in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt. At a recurring annual competition, The Triple Depth, held in nearby Dahab just two weeks short of the world championships, a new light shone forth on the world of freediving; completely unknown British freediver Sara Campbell broke three deep diving world records in the space of 48 hours. At the following world championships, she claimed the Constant Weight gold at the expense of Molchanova, who suffered a severe blackout in competition and was disqualified. Meanwhile, Herbert Nitsch claimed both possible gold medals, including the Constant Weight without Fins category now part of the world championships.
On a negative side, in 2007 freediving was struck by two more tragedies; first long time active AIDA judge and instructor, popular Dimitris Vassilakis (Greece) drowned while spear fishing, and later the French No-Limits master Loïc Leferme lost his life in a private training session with his sled outside Nice. The sled became entangled during ascent, and Leferme failed to reach the surface in time. By a bizarre twist of fate, Leferme on the day was training down to the exact same depth as the one that claimed the life of Audrey Mestre five years earlier.
The Present Future
The 2008 5th AIDA Team World Championship returned the world-class freedivers to sunny Sharm el-Sheikh in Egypt. The Russian female team was again triumphant with an unprecedented margin down to USA and Japan. In a close men’s competition, the French team took the gold with less than 10 points down to the Czech Republic with Finland as runners up.
As of 2008, AIDA has officiated 204 world records and presented 156 world championship medals. Resent seasons have revealed talented freedivers like William Winram (Canada), Dave Mullins, Ant Williams and William Trubridge (New Zealand), and also Elisabeth Kristoffersen (Norway), Annelie Pompe (Sweden), Jarmila Slovencikova (Czech republic) and Karla Fabrio (Croatia), with more arriving just beyond the horizon. Freedivers today have held their breath for more than 10 minutes, swam as long as 250 meters in length and gone beyond 200 meters in depth, all on a single breath of air. As records continue to be broken, there seem to be no end to the aquatic potential of Homo Sapiens. As competitive freediving continues to evolve, it is AIDA that oversees this evolution, combining freediving efforts from a total of 65 countries worldwide today.
|
|
|
|
.jpg)
