Wednesday, November 28, 2007

Winter Sled Team


Here Come ... The Judges
Originally uploaded by Laura Storm.
The last six weeks have seen a UK freediving phenomenon take place. No news here, though, and there has been good reason for that. I've been ever-so-slightly busy making this news public, dealing with related press enquiries, liaising with PR agents, doing interviews...the list goes on. I now have a little more time on my hands, and to avoid repetition, a summary about our new world champ's achievements can be read at the bottom of the BFA homepage. The interview I did with Sara will follow in due course.

A couple of exciting new websites are now out there. One is Sam Kirby's Saltfree site, and the other is Liv Philip's. Both well-designed, and worth bookmarking. Gone are the days when you could get away with crafting html in notepad to build a website. For the time being I'm sticking with flickr, Ebay and Blogger for my own efforts. Internet bi-finning, if you will.

The British Freediving Championships have just been awarded, and the 2007 Women's award goes to....Liv Philip! Anne-Marie Kitchen-Wheeler gets retrospective awards for 2005 and 2006. Well done to the ladies. The 2007 award may seem at first glance to be a little unusual. Don't we have a triple World Record holder with Sara Campbell, and should she not be the holder? Well, points are made up from the core disciplines of static apnea, dynamic and constant weight. So although Sara has a solid 90 points to contribute from one discipline, Liv has points in all three and therefore outranks. No controversy here - Sara has focused on depth disciplines and reaped the rewards there, so Liv equally deserves recognition for diversifying her efforts.

On the men's front we have 2 new UK record holders - Marcus Greatwood regains the title that was his at the outset - Free Immersion, with a solid 61 metre performance. Dave King has knocked us all sideways, with a new constant weight record of 78 metres. Set only a few weeks after returning to competitive freediving from a 3 year absence. What depths would he be plundering if he had been in-training during that time? Prospects for the 2008 GB team are looking very good now, both Men and Women's. Wherever the World Championships are, I shall be watching from afar and wishing the team well.

Last but not least, we are expecting good news from Australia, as Ben Noble heads out to Dahab next week with several of us as his UK entourage, to set some sled records. I'm looking forward to a ride on the sled myself, as well as all the other good things that Dahab has to offer.