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Cyprus 2003 - SFOC
Howard's Game
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It is very easy. You find a place where the
visibility is 40m + with a friendly water temperature. You take
a professional dive barge for Constant weight, a hotel with swimming
pool for Static and find somewhere near a sport pool for Dynamic.
You write out the event as open individual so that everybody is
able to participate. You call this event Sony Freediver Open Classic
and wait for the inscriptions. No, of course not easy, instead
a lot of work for Howard and his Crew, nicknamed monkeys.
The concept was easy. Everybody had to pay a
small entry fee and was able to participate. Everybody? Yes everybody,
because it was individual open, so not only a selected national
team was allowed to come but each athlete who wanted could subscribe
and compete without performance minima's. This gave the competition
a special touch and a lot of new faces showed up.
Basis for everything was the Golden Arches hotel in Limassol.
In the days before the competition this hotel and area was filling
up slowly with freediving people. With Saturday, the official
inscription day, the area was full with the freediving tribe.
A lot of big hello's all around.
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Sunday and Monday where official deep diving
training and all athletes where able to check out the barge. The
barge with her very nice crew is a professional diving and working
platform which was anchored outside at 110m depth and where the
vis is 40m plus.
Monday morning only a small group of freedivers showed up for
the official training because most of them wanted to stay fresh
for the Dynamic competition.
In the afternoon everybody was at the sport pool. On four lanes,
at the same time, the athletes made their performances, but all
big names where not able to show anything special. But in the
second last group, one of the favourites, Annabel Briseno, prepared
here dive. Next to here, Natalia Molchanova, a competition newcomer
from Russia prepared herself too. The start signal came and Natalia
made the surprise of the comp.
After a 2min 9seconds dive she touches the wall and equalises
the 150m world record.
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But this should not be the only surprise of
the day. As all depth announcements had to be done secretly today,
the evening lists showed, that Martin Stepanek and Herbert Nitsch,
both announced -93 meters, which would be a new world record.
On the first day of the Constant competition the sea was flat
with very good conditions.
The same on day 2. A lot of divers showed excellent performances
but there where a lot of black outs too.
Some athletes reclaimed, following their personal opinion, the
too hard judging, but as this was an international comp, it was
clear that the judges had to be very strict.
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Carlos
Coste - Hello Clip (1,45MB)
Carlos Coste, ascending from his -85 meter dive, is
cool enough to give a hello to the ApneaPlanet camera-man!!!
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Day 3 was the ultimate day. Herbert Nitsch
and Martin Stepanek should have their -93m challenge.
The weather this day was not so nice. Big waves ware banging against
the barge, but you cannot choose the weather for your attempt.
Herbert was on cable A, diving first. If he would be successful
and Martin too, they both would share the new world record.
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Friday was Static day. In four zones at the
same the performances where done. Depending on the pre-announcements
was the starting row. Lowest announcements first, longest at the
end.
Personal bests from training sessions made the round. Timmo Kinnunen
with 8:27 and Herbert Nitsch with 8:29
Will here also a new world record be set? But nobody did jump
over the 8 minutes. Timmo did best performance, but he received
penalty points for his to high, not reached announcement. Herbert,
doing the Static with his broken eardrum and taped ear could reach
7:15 and became first with this performance.
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At the end of the day Howard made a big awarding
ceremony followed by a big party.
Already now, Howard announced Sony freediver Open Classic 2004.
All pictures in this article are taken from ApneaPlanet
video material.
ApneaPlanet offers the single constant weight dives on video.
Find out more under Videos
...
Different video productions are working on documentation about
the event, which will be released soon.
Howard Jones from Freediver magazin is making the official video
- www.freediver.co.uk
Ambrosia Productions is also working on a film about the event
- www.ambrosiaproductions.tv
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