credit © Freediving.bizAs we informed previously in the post http://apnea.cz/blog.html?thread=2085, Sebstian Murat prepares to redo the current world record of Herbert Nitsch of 214m No-Limits, with the difference that he will dive on empty lungs. Sebastian now looks for some volunteers to assist him in the attempt, and in the same time he prepares a workshop in Antibes, France:

Yesterday, on March 24th, 2012, there was an FFESSM (French CMAS branch) competition in Massy, near Paris. It included also the speed apnea discipline 16x50m. Brice Lequette created a new best world`s performance with the time of 10`49`34.

Before 2011 the world records were not officially sanctioned, so each such performance when done with the presence of judges was considered a world record, but since last year 16x50m became one of the new official CMAS disciplines, hence proper sanctioning and an international status of the event is required for the WR status. I am not yet quite sure whether this record will be recognized as a WR, so possibly it will remain just a national record and the best world`s performance.

The information comes from the website of the FFESSM: http://apnee.ffessm.fr/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=252:5eme-manche-de-coupe-de-france-massy&catid=39:reserve&Itemid=79

Apnea.cz did not receive the complete results yet, but will add them to the ranking as soon as available.

At the last WR of Brice of 11`10`, the video casted some doubts on the regularity of the performance, since the starts did not appear being coherent with the rules telling the athlete has to touch the wall at the moment of immersion. I requested a video from this event, and if available I will post it here later.

In any way, regardless of the regularity, it is an amazing performance, and I send my congratulations to Brice!

Note on March 25: still no video available, but according to numerous witnesses, including the organizer, the CMAS rules requiring a contact with the wall in the moment of immersion were controlled by judges and properly respected.

The resting times were 9s at the first laps, and around 15s at the end. At the final lap(s), the swim time was under 25s.

If you do not know yet, there is a database of freediving training exercises at Apnea.cz too. In fact it was one of the first features of this website. It is not only a simple database listing different types of exercises and full training sessions for different freediving idsciplines, but also an interactive and programmable application for training so-called hypercapnic and hypoxic tables, and also other types of exercices.

There are many additional features planned, but the development did not progress a lot in the last time, because the work on the other parts of the website takes a lot of time too. Recently a user reported problems with running the application. To my surprise the problems were caused by an upgrade of the engine of the programming language, that was done a few months earlier, but no user dared reporting it till now. The bug is now fixed, and the ATM should work again as earleir. If you try it and encounter any problems, please do not hesitate to report them.

Branko Petrović (Serbia) has just created a new record in static apnea - incredible 12 minutes and 11 seconds, beating so the current official World Record of Stephane Mifsud (France) of 11:35 by more than half a minute! However, the record will receive only national status from AIDA Serbia, because the conditions for the world record were not fulfilled. Branko will do an official world record attempt later, when finances allow. Or perhaps at one of the future competitions with a WR status - Branko already holds the best performance in a competition (10:23 from Submania 2011), so it may be a cheaper alternative for him (unless he finds a wealthy sponsor for organizing the individual WR attempt).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xvVkp1h5Q1U

In the last weeks I had troubles adding new competitions for diverse reasons (from technical, over changes at AIDA International and the underlying interface to Apnea.cz, to the lack of time, and some personal issues). In the last days I finally managed to add a bigger number of all the past competitions I managed to find. Unfortunately it is still very difficult to find the results - a big majority of competition organizers for some reason do not bother about publishing their results, and even less about sending the results to AIDA or to Apnea.cz, and even less sending them in a standardized form.

So despite adding 44 new competitions in the last days, there are results of another 16 competitions still missing only in 2011 (47 known missing competitions in total). If you happen to know any judges or organizers of those competitions, please ask them to hurry up sending the results for the ranking.

There is the list of recently added competitions here:

Campeonato Estadal del Miranda 2011 (VE)
2da Válida Clasificatoria al Panamericano 2012 (EC)
IX Festival Olímpico Ecuatoriano 2011 (EC)
1st Thessaloniki Inter Apnea Games 2011 (GR)
Coupe départementale de Haute-Garonne (FR)
Los Angeles Apnea Challenge 2011 - US Nationals (US)
1° Trofeo Calispera 90 ASD di Assetto Constante (IT)
4° Trofeo Loris Pozzati (IT)
I Open Apnea Catalunya 2010 (ES)
Apnea Academy competition 2011 in Tago (JP)
12th Manazuru freediving classic (JP)
Apnea Academy 2011 indoor competition (JP)
1º Torneio Apneia Total Maceió (BR)
1ra Válida Apnea Clasificatoria 2012 (EC)
7th Cup of Montreal / AIDA Canada Indoor Regional Competition 2011 (CA)
Cup of Russia 2011 (RU)
Les 3 épreuves Apnea City (CA)
Silesian Freediving Cup 2011 (PL)
Hydro Dynamic - Austrian Championship 2011 (AT)
II Open Apnea Catalunya 2011 (ES)
All-Russian Competition 2011 (RU)
IV Cup AIDA Ukraine (UA)
Coupe de Noël du Haut-Rhin 2011 (FR)
Rhein-Main Cup 2011 (DE)
Campeonato Nacional 2011 (VE)
Trofeo Team Security Apnea 2011 (IT)
Championnat de Normandie 2011 (FR)
2° Trofeo H2BO `Bolognapnea` (IT)
7th Submania Apnea Cup 2011 (HR)
IV Cup AIDA Ukraine (FINAL) (UA)
2° Trofeo Asti Blu (IT)
Campionato Italiano Invernale Elite e Indoor per Societa` di Apnea Dinamica (IT)
Championnat de Guadeloupe (GP)
Coupe de France 2012 - 1ère manche (FR)
Open Freedive Liège 2011 (BE)
Niederösterreichische Meisterschaften 2011 (AT)
Toronto Static 2011 Mini Comp (CA)
Vertical Blue 2008 (BS)
FDD November Minicomp (EG)
Slovenian National Championship 2011 (SV)
11th anniversairy of AIDA Belgium (BE)
Danish Freediving Championship 2011 (DK)
Freedive Paradise II 2011 (US)
Open Argentino de Apnea 2011 (AR)

I added also some addtional statistics on the competition pages - at the bottom of each competition page you can now see the average performances, the numbers of participating competitors, nationalities, total number of performances, penalties, disqualifications, blackouts, and some other details. These data can be the seen also on the Competition List, where you then can compare competitions from different points of view. So for example you can see which competition had the biggest number of participitaning freedivers, the biggest number of blackouts, etc. Just click the header of the respective column to sort the table by one of the parameters.

Wishing Merry Christmass and Happy New Year to all of you!
Ivo