TRIPLE DEPTH DAY ONE

FREE IMMERSION

This year Triple depth turned out to be a small and chilled competition, since we have only 25 athletes.
So we celebrated this by starting with the first official top at 10 am.
The staff got to the Blue Hole quite early anyways, since every time we think everything is under control and we relax too much, something bad always happens and we make it JUST in time for the first official top!
(Just like that time when Lotta and I were so early with the preparation the day before the comp, that we decided to go shopping at the second hand shop, and we spent 3 hours in there, ending up measuring the rope at midnight!)

Luckily the wind was quite strong, so that the billions snorkelers were too scared to paddle about and the situation around the competition area was more or less under control. The platform has been invaded only once by a scary looking woman with 2 inches of make up on her face, and poor Dean (the official videographer) was too polite (or too afraid?) to tell her where she should move her cellulite.

Judges this year are Lotta Ericson, Linda Paganelli (that’s me!) and Katya Smirnova. We are 3 because Katya and I are so sick that the two of us put together barely make one functioning person.

As many of you might know already, the Russian machine, also known as Natalia Molchanova, did a new world record today, with an 82mt dive. Dive time was 3.47 (she’s taking her time!), and she did a very lazy ascent during the last 15mt, since she let herself very slowly floating up to the surface. She did a happy and perfect surface protocol in 9 seconds, and judge Katya showed her the white card. Natalia had the WR in FIM since 2005, but Sara took it during last year Triple Depth with a 81mt dive. Now she finally got it back, and despite the Russian self control she looked happy enough.

Another remarkable news is that there were no black outs today :-)
The only one not being happy about this is judge Lotta, because she is well known in the freediving world to be the one that always likes to kiss the blacked out divers (especially the boys). Truth is that she must do it so well that they wake up so fast after the kiss :-)


Finnish Ingela had a LMC and didn’t finish the SP in time so she got a red card.
The only other LMC was of Swedish Martin, but he managed the SP in time, so he got a white card.
Another red card went to Croatian Veljano who was a bit confused with the SP and made a little mistake. Otherwise he did a nice 67 mt dive, ascending unassisted (at least in the last part, because I saw his dive from the surface).
Jacov was also DQ’d for the surface protocol. We noticed Jacov does everything way too fast: he started 5 seconds before OT, he announced a divetime of 2.30 and completed the dive in 1.30, and did the fastest SP I saw. So fast in fact, that he didn’t have the time to locate the judge.
Sweet Rahel got a yellow card for early turn and for starting 1 second before official top!

Everybody else was doing fine and made us all happy.
6 new national records were set.

German Anna did an easy 53mt dive beating her own national record. When she’ll stop swallowing (her mouthfill!) and she’ll work a bit on her technique, she’ll dive much deeper :-)
Another national record went to beautiful Croatian Karla, who dove to 57mt, and took Vedrana’s NR of 47mt, which the latter had the pleasure to hold just for around 1 hour (since she just dove shortly before Karla).
Egyptian Ashod did a 52mt new NR (well, he’s the only Egyptian freediver still living, no wonder he’s holding all the records!)
Ben Noble did an Australian record with a 52 mt dive, and Mario took the Portuguese record doing 45mt.
Ben managed to upset the lazy Spanish safety crew, so if I would be him I wouldn’t attempt a deep dive tomorrow…you never know.

Rob King from US did a beautiful 69 mt dive and came up with a big smile (he only does it because otherwise I hassle him for not looking happy enough!), and his tag “velcroed” to his neckweight. Since I’m a bit evil (and some people might think that BIT is not quite the right word) before he had the chance to do anything, I screamed “he doesn’t have the tag!!”, and you should have seen how quick his sweet smile got replaced by a horrific look :-)

Here's the results of today and the starting list for tomorrow (CWT)

FIM results

FEMALE
1st Natalia Molchanova 82
2nd Karla Fabrio 57
3rd Liv Philip 54
4th Anna Von Boetticher 53
5th Angela Ambrosi 50
6th Vedrana Vidovic 47
7th Georgina Miller 34
8th Ingela Karlsson 0

MALE
1st Rober King 69
2nd Martin Wikstrom 55
3rd Ashod Papazian 52
3rd Andrea Zuccari 52
5th ben Noble 51
6th Sofus Kreutzmann 50
6th Slaven Cubric 50
6th Tomo Vrdoljak 50
9th Mario Albunquerque 45
9th Richard Wonka 45
11th Veljano Zanki 0
11th Jakov Kastelar 0


And for tomorrow:

CWT Starting list (11th June)

1 Ingela Karlsson 33mt
2 Jakov Kastelar 41mt
3 Georgina Miller 43mt
4 Rahel Zemoi 50mt
5 Tomo Vrdoljak 50mt
6 Olga Suryakova 50mt
7 Angela Ambrosi 50mt
8 Richard Wonka 51mt
9 Andrea Zuccari 52mt
10 Ben Noble 53mt
11 Vedrana Vidovic 55mt
12 Anna Von Boetticher 56mt
13 Liv Philip 57mt
14 Martin Wikstrom 57mt
15 Yuri Shmatko 58mt
16 Karla Fabrio 61mt
17 Slaven Cubric 63mt
18 Sofus Kreutzmann 64mt
19 Ashod Papazian 65 mt
20 Ben Guyat 67 mt
21 Robert King 72mt
22 Veljano Zanki 80mt