TEAM WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS - 5th sept

Today is a day off, hamdulilllah. We’ve been trying to sleep late this morning, but somehow the body went in automatic and I woke up at 7 again.

Plan of the day:
-sneak around and take pictures of the hotties
-eat like a pig
-look for some gossip

I also want to find out who are the hottest girls here. In my humble opinion, I would say the two girls of the safety team (both Freedive Dahab members), and also all the Spinsters team members but maybe I’m not really impartial here. So I’ll go and ask the guys.

By the way, if you want the phone number of any of the Spinsters’ team, drop me a mail and I’ll be happy to comply.

Here 2 pics of the official team (not considering Paoletta and Sara, who are only the reserves)





As for the trend of the year, I noticed all the vulgar jokes about mouthfills and swallowing have been dropped, and instead the most popular line you often hear when you are safetying or coaching is “can you grab my noodle?”
The one who say it more often is definitely Robert the King. He asked me many times. I don’t know if he does that with every other girl.
Yesterday I heard Kirk saying that (or better, screaming it) to safety Katya, in front of everybody. Mandy watch out.
I also heard guys saying that to each other… The other day I was distracted and forgot to grab Rob noodle’s as he asked me, and he gave it to Ricky instead. He said that when he's "in the zone" he doesn't really care who take his noodle.

I really think is a great ice breaker. Not only for a guy to use. Say you (girl) like this guy, you go there and say “do you mind if I seat on your noodle?” or “can I borrow your noodle” or, simply “mmmh, I like your noodle!”
Well, don’t forget he has to be a freediver, and he has to have a noodle (the floating one), or otherwise he would run away quick. Or maybe not.

Ok, let’s get back to the important things, like the real diving.
I’ve seen so many dives these last days, that I remember it all like a blur.
But for sure I remember the more remarkable ones.

First of all, I’d like to remark, once again, that very few freedivers know how to do a proper duck dive.
Next year (and I announce it here officially) Freedive Dahab will organize a half day workshop about duck diving at the WC 2009.
20 euro per person. If half the people who need it sign up, it’ll pay for sure our accommodation for the whole stay.
Also, there are a lot of freedivers that should consider taking a course before showing up at a competition, especially if it is a World Championship.
We give special price for groups.

German Barbara announced the shocking depth of 12mt.The plate was so shining that it blinded us all. Even she told the judges to “please put it at 12, at least”, looking a bit offended, like they were taking the piss.
Apparently, they say, she has so much trouble equalizing that she takes ages to get down. Well, not during that dive. With her powerful carbon fins she rocketed down and up quite fast. Maybe she should slow down and relax a bit; that might help her equalizing troubles. I’m rather sure that was the shallowest announcement in a World Championship.

Deepest dive was announced by Dave (Mullins), with 104. He went just after Ryuzo, who turned at 92 for equalizing problems, I think. Also Dave turned at 92, but because of the deepest announcement he lost more points.

The Kiwi team was actually the favourite, but because of this dive, and especially because of the 33 points penalty of Will, they ended up 5th in the overall result. Ant, my favourite kiwi member, announced “only” 82, and he did a very nice clean dive. His depth is only limited by equalizing, since he keeps losing his cheekful (as he cutely calls it).

Lots of 100 mt dives this year. One was delivered by Martin. One by Greek Manolis, who I think is ripe enough for a WR, but I thing he’s too humble and shy for fame, which I find a very sweet thing.
One more 100 was announced by Guillaume, who chickened out and turned at 98.5, losing 5 points. I can understand if you chicken out at 70 on the way down, thinking is still a long way to go, but Guillaume, 150 centimeters before the plate is silly! On the other hand he’s French, so normal logic doesn’t apply to him.
The last 100 was for Slovak Juraj, who, maybe knowing he was going to win the Hotties Challenge, got distracted and missed the rope on the surface before falling face down unconscious. Pity. But he delivered a very hot smile to the jury when he woke up. He should al least get some points for his perfectly white teeth.

Italian hottie Federico (he’s not on the Hot List just because he’s married and has a kid, just as Ant is, and therefore they are of no interest to the Spinsters team), delivered a beautiful 90, which is the new Italian record. The plan was to share the record with Davide Carrera, who did the same depth the day before, but did the SP half a second too late. Shame: who knows him a bit knows how much he deserves it.

The Italian Men Team is completed by Ilaria, who’s definitely not a man. She did a super easy 60 mt dive, with virtually no training at all. She’s back in competition after a long break, and I’m really happy about that, because she’s good, and because if we find a third member (and if I feel like competing again) we plan to kick asses on the next team competition. The only complain I have against Ilaria is that, like most freedivers she’s not fond of air condition, and she’s forcing me to sleep with no less than 29 degrees.
Why you people don’t like air con? It’s with no doubt the greatest invention of the last century. All these stories about how bad it’s for the sinuses are just myths. Wake up, and enjoy the artificial weather!

Other deep dives were the ones of French Christian (85), Greek Dimitrios (85), Hot Swedish Johan (85), Slovak Martin (81),Finnish Antero (80), French Morgan (80).

Russian Alexey announced 95, which he did very easily, but he got 10 points off for rope violation. Actually he scared me to death, since apparently he did have a BO during the warm-up, and the judges let him dive anyways. As soon as he duck dived I screamed for Stavros to come on my line and to go deep together in case he had a problem. Poor Stavros was still trying to catch his breath after the deep safety for Federico, and he wasn’t looking too happy about the possibility of a deep BO. As it turned out we never made it deeper than 15mt, since there was some mistake on Alexey divetime (which we expected to be 3.15), and he was much quicker than we thought. He came up looking very happy and relaxed. Until he got the yellow card.

The deepest female divers were Natalia (unsurprisingly) with a easy 85 mt, followed by Mandy with 8o mt.
Third deepest was Chzek Jarmila, who already won the Gold last year for CNF. She did a clean 70mt dive.
Other females in the 60 mt range were Brazilian Carol (67) and Russian Natalia (Avseenko) (65) who got both red card but then protested and won (many expressed doubts about the change of the jury decisions). Japanese females all between 60 and 63, all white cards. French Julie (62), American Annabel (61), Italian Ilaria (60), Danish Maria (60), Swedish Annelie did 60 with an almost broken foot.
British MT did 60 but got 50 points for rope violation. American Jessica announced 62 but turned earlier, German Anna announced 60 but turned at 55 disturbed by a cramp.

Now i'm off for some pic hunting. Will get back as soon as i have some good material.

LATER

Got the pictures of the Hottie Challenge!!

This is winner Juraj



And this is winner Johan (I have to admit he doesn't look at his best here, will try to get a better shot)