Saturday August 7 and Sunday August 8, 2010, CASM (Club d’Apnée Sportive de Montréal) will be hosting its 2nd Depth Challenge in Flintkote Quarry, Thetford Mines, Province of Quebec.

This year, participating athletes will not only be able to dive in the depth discipline of their choice (Free Immersion, Constant Weight and Constant Weight without Fins) over the two days of this competition, they will also have a chance to visit the underwater exhibit event organized by AQUART, courtesy of CASM. Do not miss this event ! This will also be a great opportunity for volunteers to get involved as they will access the exhibition AQUART for free.

Trophies will be awarded at the evening party organized at the Midtown Sporting Club Le Sanctuaire, on Sunday evening.

This competition will be sanctioned by AIDA Canada and is the AIDA Canada Depth National Championships. Open to all competitors from all nations, only performances from Canadian athletes will appear in the national ranking.

For more information about the competition and to register, please visit Freedive Central. Results will be posted live during the competition on Freedive Central.

To secure your spot, make sure to register before July 29, 2010. First come, first served.

The 3rd Mediterranean Freediving World Cup took place from Monday June 14 to Sunday June 20 and was both a team and an individual competition. In addition, the multi depth discipline format allowed all participating athletes to give their best performances over five competition days.

On Sunday afternoon, after the last countdown was given and all athletes had their final chance at competing, Team Canada members finally had time to unwind. After filling up on local pastries, they headed for the beach for a final Team briefing.

Canada can be proud of Nathalie Hébert, Kattie Lussier, Jana Strain, Philippe Beauchamp and William Winram! All around, it has been nothing but personal successes, provincial, national and continental records, medals and world cup champion titles !!

Here is a summary of Team Canada’s accomplishments:

Nathalie Hébert
Constant Weight without Fins (CNF): 20 meters - provincial record for Quebec
Constant Weight (CWT): 20 meters - personal best

Kattie Lussier
CNF: 30 meters - personal best
Free Immersion (FIM): 41 meters - personal best
CWT: 46 meters - personal best

Jana Strain
CNF: 49 meters, silver-medal performance
FIM: 60 meters, personal best, silver-medal performance
CWT: 64 meters, personal best, silver-medal performance
Overall World Cup champion, women

As a team, the women of Team Canada take the WORLD CUP CHAMPIONS title !

Philippe Beauchamp
CNF: 46 meters - provincial record for Quebec
FIM: 60 meters - provincial record for Quebec
Variable Weight (VWT): 75 meters - national record

William Winram
CNF: 72 meters, gold-medal performance, CNF World Cup Champion, men
FIM: 97 meters, national and continental record, gold-medal performance, FIM World Cup Champion, men

All results by discipline can be found on Freedive Central. Overall results can be found here.

The perks of being Team Canada captain - photo by Julie Gautier

Team Canada would like to extend their special thanks to the World Cup organizers Stavros Kastrinakis and Panagiota Balanou who dedicated themselves to successfully delivering the largest event ever organized in the Mediterranean Sea. They were assisted by a most wonderful team who handled not only logistics but tirelessly performed their duties as safety freedivers. Along with the organizers, they were the first up in the morning and usually the last to have dinner… Warm thanks go to Manos, Giorgos, Andreas, Yannis, Manthos, Stelios, Daan and Nikolas for their dedication and warm smiles no matter how long their day was.

On Sunday evening, athletes donned their dressy clothes to attend the awards ceremony along with many officials of the City of Kalamata and the media. A dinner was served under the stars at the hotel pool deck and the party, complete with a DJ, was held at the upper deck pool until the wee hours of the morning.

See you next year Team Canada !!

Team Canada with a tan - photo by Marc Lenoir

Team Canada member and Captain Philippe Beauchamp

Sunday June 20, 2010

After a week of personal bests and Provincial records, Quebec-born Philippe Beauchamp attempted and realized a Variable Weight dive this morning to a depth of 75 meters, setting a first national record in the sled discipline. After his training dives to 70 meters during the week prior to the competition, he knew he could comfortably add a few more meters for his attempt this week.

Interviewed shortly after he returned from his successful dive, the Team Canada captain said: “It’s been a fun competition and it was great to have the support of the Montreal Freediving Club as well as the AIDA Canada freediver community behind us.”

The rest of Team Canada is still out on the water competing for their last dive of this competition.

Stay tuned for the final summary and results.

Team Canada member Jana Strain - photo by Nanna Kreutzman

Thursday June 17, 2010.
Competition day #3

A fantastic day for the Canadian women, all white cards in constant no fins. Personally I had a little chip on my shoulder from my yellow card on the last attempt, so today I was back for retribution. I was not happy about having to redo CNF, since I have not been training it and I personally find this discipline hard if I do not train it.

My fellow Canadians have been doing really well. On Tuesday June 15, William Winram set a new continental record, 97 meters Free Immersion. Philippe and I have been announcing the same dives without knowing, but lucky for him he didn’t make the mistake I did two days ago, so he doesn’t need to do another CNF dive in the competition, regardless I have a suspicion that we will be seeing something much deeper coming from him soon.

Last night the hotel became alive with a crash, bang and boom of men fighting in the lobby to be followed by an encore of drunken guitar playing until 5am. Lucky for me I was wearing ear plugs and did not hear a thing, not so for all divers.

Today the diving was deepest to shallowest, and the conditions were perfect this morning, but by the end of the competition there was some current, wind and waves. Maybe it was conditions or lack of sleep, but today a few divers did not start, or surfaced to see yellow and red cards.

I was the first to the line of my female team mates. My warm up did not go as I would have liked, my mask flooded on my first warm up and I was surprised because the thermocline that was at 15 meters two days ago, jumped up to 9 meters. I did 3 short warm ups instead of two longer ones and I had only 10 minutes to relax before my official top.

I have had many problems with equalization during the competition, so I decided to try something different today. I swam down until 26 meters then just relaxed to equalize. When things got uncomfortable in my ear I did a few strokes grabbed a tag and returned to the surface. Philippe my coach said I looked very sloppy on my last two strokes, which I think was because of the current. I made sure to surface before I grabbed the line, because I certainly did not want another yellow card. I had a small pause after I removed my facial equipment, but a shout from Philippe reminded me to get on with it and finish my surface protocol.

Soon after my dive I saw Kattie getting into the water and looking very stressed. She had kindly asked the loud party crew to be quiet around 2:30am, but was told to go away. She didn’t get much sleep and was feeling nervous about her 30 meters dive. This was 7 meters deeper than her personal best, but she had done 23 meters in 4 degree water with a 5mm suit so we convinced her to announce 30 meters.

Once Kattie was at the official line she had relaxed and had a look of determination in her eyes. She dove down and because of current it took her many strokes to get to 20 meters, she made it to 30 meters then surfaced away from the dive line. She was wearing fluid goggles which makes your vision doubled on the surface and for a moment I was afraid that she would not find the line. Luckily she did, finishing her surface protocol with a huge smile.

Nathalie was up next with a 20 meters CNF dive. She did a dry warm up and entered the water a few minutes before her dive in her new, and very difficult to don, fast skin. She had a easy first 10 meters, then a tumble turn for equalization, then a few more meters and another tumble turn, at this point she was 3 meters from the plate. She went and grabbed her tag, not letting go of it until she was back in her room. Loud cheers on the surface when she saw her first white card of the competition.

Tomorrow we will all put on our fins except William who will attempt a new depth in CNF… Stay tuned.

The 3rd Mediterranean Freediving World Cup is hosted by the Municipality of Kalamata in collaboration with Freediving Club Greece of Mr Stavros Kastrinakis and is under the auspices of AIDA Hellas and AIDA International. The event’s schedule includes 3 more competition days spreading out to Sunday 20th June so a lot more can be expected from these amazing athletes.

Complete list of Records (listed by Type of record, Discipline, Athlete, Performance achieved to this day):
World Record Variable Ballast Natalia Molchanova (RUS) 125m
Continental Record Free Immersion William Winram (CAN) 97m
National Record No-Limits Stavros Kastrinakis (GRE) 151m
National Record No-Limits Ben Noble (AUS) 105m
National Record Variable Ballast Ben Noble (AUS) 100m
National Record Variable Ballast Anna Von Boetticher (GER) 100m
National Record Free Immersion Jure Daic (SLO) 86m
National Record Free Immersion Jakob Hansen (DEN) 75m
National Record Free Immersion Mark Harris (GBR) 70m
National Record Free Immersion Adel Abu Haliqa (UAE) 45m

Rock on !

Team Canada member William Winram

So, I have decided to be a guinea pig. There happens to be a scientist attending the World Cup, Giorgos Sakkas, PhD, who is not only a talented freediver but also a medical researcher for the departments of Medicine and Exercise and Sports Science at the University of Thessaly as well as the Institute of Human Performance and Rehabilitation (CERETETH).

He is researching sleep in freedivers. Well, he’s going to get a handful of information from me, as I have not particulary slept well since my arrival in Greece.

The hypothesis of the study is the following: intense apnea training might affect peripheral chemoreceptor regulation of breathing. This could have an impact in sleep quality as it could induce events of central sleep apnea episodes during sleep.

The aims of the study are:
1. To investigate whether competitive level freedivers will have reduced sleep quality and quantity compared to non-divers.
2. To investigate whether competitive level freedivers are prone to sleep apnea disorders compared to non-divers.

So, before I had a chance to change my mind, here I was, strapped to a portable system which was to record continuously during the night various parameters such as my breathing frequency, blood pressure, heart rate, blood saturation, leg movements, muscle tone and a full encephalography for assessing my sleep stages.

For sure, I had no idea what I was getting into. Imagine sleeping with all these electrodes hooked into your skull, face and body. Why on earth had I agreed to this on the eve of a major dive ? Hindsight is 20/20. So, I closed my eyes and tried to sleep….

Low and behold, I had a rather decent night sleep. Who knew you could actually reach dream state under these conditions ?

In the afternoon, I went on to have a great dive feeling fully rested. I guess you never know.

Keep on inspiring us Team Canada!

Team Canada member Kattie Lussier

First, I managed to connect to the internet at last and spent most of the morning relaxing and talking with amazing freedivers. I say most of the morning because at 8am i had the second part of my sled course. I had a chance to look at all the parts of the sled and counterweight system before they bring it to the dive site. Stavros, the instructor, explained the different components and all the safety features and concerns about the equipment.

At 12h30 I got on the boat to reach the dive site. I did 2 warm ups, spent sometimes to focus (my objective was to work on relaxation) and off I went to 43 meters in constant weight. I was totally relax and enjoyed every moment of the dive. I must have free falled quite fast because when i heard my alarm (i haven’t learned the mouth fill yet so i set it to remind me i have to get ready to turn) and opened my eyes to see where i was i was already reaching the point where the liner stops and my head was below the plate looking at the weight. I was feeling sooo good. Equalization had been smooth and easy all the way and I knew i had plenty of air left to swim back up so i took a second to visualize the taking of the tag, the turn i should have done and the way up. I finned slowly but with a lot on amplitude so I really “felt the sea” on the way up. The safety diver was a friend of mine so it must have put me in a good mood. I smiled at him as i was ascending the last 20 meters and even managed to visualize my surfacing something i always try to do but rarely succeed doing. I want to go deeper next time but I won’t. I will do it again and try to be as relaxed as today but doing the turn properly.

I rested a bit and went towards the sled. I was invited by my instructor to watch Natalia Molchanova’s dive. It was amazing to observe the great lady of freediving breathing up, then adopting the position on the sled. I was really close so I was able to observe the position of her body and her fin. Then I saw her go down and listened while the one of the crew operating the fish finder on the boat announced her depth; 70, 80, 90, 100, going up, 80, 70 ….. i observed her recovery breath and her surface protocol.

Then, I went on the boat and had a go at reading the fish finder while Ben Noble (Australia) was making a beautiful variable weight dive. I learned the role of the people on the boat and had a go at recovering the sled and lowering the dive line.

At last it was my turn. I did two variable weights dives but keeping in mind that I had made a constant weight personal best not long ago, I went to 36 meters. Later on, I watched Stavros doing a no-limit dive and took the boat back to the hotel.

What comes after a training like this one?
a) Eating bread with Nutella
b) Go meet other freedivers on the terrace overlooking the sea
c) Take a dip in the pool under the palm trees

How about all of the above ?

What else can i ask? Really? I am over the moon. Have a really nice day everyone! Wish you were here as well



Kat

After their morning diving rituals, freedivers of the World Cup boarded a bus which meandered for two hours through endless hills of wild olive trees to arrive in Ancient Olympia, the original site of the Olympic games, nestled in the plains of Elis in the Peloponnese. There are no clear records of the exact beginnings of the games but the date 776 BC seems to make all historians happy.

Back then, legend says a sacred truce was concluded by three kings; Iphitos of Elis, Lycourgos of Sparta and Kleosthenes of Pisa after Iphitos asked the Delphic Oracle how to save Greece from civil war and plagues. The answer was to revive the Olympics from their mythological roots. Applicable to all participating Greek city states, the truce ensured cessation of hostilities amongst them and the suspension of all executions during the games. The Olympia sanctuary evolved into an important center as the scope of the games gradually became panhellenic.

The Philippeion - approx 338 BC

Upon entry into the archaeological site, one of the first remaining buildings is the Philippeion. This circular monument was commissioned by Philip II of Macedonia (father to Alexander the Great) in celebration of both athletic and military victories.

A short walk further, a ‘wall of shame’ was conveniently located just before the athletes were about to enter the tunnel which led them to the stadium. Names of cheaters were carved in stone on the wall (doping was already a science back then) and visitors would spit on the wall as they passed by.

Remnants of the tunnel through which athletes entered the stadium (view from the stadium)

And so, there it was: the stadium. In front of 35′000 spectators (all men except for the priestess of the games), athletes would enter the grounds, almost completely naked, as it was believed they had to show their prowess without hiding behind clothes.

View of about half of the Olympia Stadium

Unlike modern venues where athletes run around in a circle, the Olympia Stadium hosted running contests in a straight line. Athletes would go back and forth between the two sets of stone border (starting blocks). Although this sounds strange to most people, it is very much like what freedivers do in a swimming pool in the discipline of dynamic; as many pool lengths as possible.

The historian Pausanias (ca. 150AD) wrote: “The Olympic victor must not win with money but the fleetness of foot and the strength of body.” A statement very much suited to freedivers who practice the pure discipline of constant weight without fins…

More to read tomorrow.

Then it’s lunch time and they must decide whether or not they are going to eat the four-course meal which is served twice a day. What to eat, what to eat? It has been rumored that a freediver’s stomach can only tolerate certain foods. Thankfully, being in Greece, they can safely drink the local tap water and regale themselves with the salads, spanakopitas, souvlakis, tsatzikis and in the infamous ‘patates’ which are potatoes pan fried in (of course Kalamata) olive oil and drizzled with lemon juice.

At around 3pm, nap time comes around. With temperatures exceeding 30° C, an hour (sometimes much longer) of rest is welcome. Upon waking, freedivers do what they do best after holding their breath: yoga. What better location than to practice it while admiring the spectacular sunsets.

Sunset yoga for Kattie, Philippe and William

Of course, Team Canada members always find reasons to toast a good day’s work. With a day’s successful training under their belts and a stretchy session of yoga, Kattie and Philippe send their cheers.

Cheers from Kattie and Philippe

Stay tuned for more updates.