British Freediving Association
Never dive alone
Adam Drzazga, a member on the British Freediving Team and Blue Water Freediving School, worked together with the BBC on a documentary about oxygen consumption in mammals.
Click on the two links below to find out more about this fascinating project and to hear what Adam has to say:
Man v Seal: www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-22870944
Freediver Reveals Breath-holding Secrets: www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-22876741
The show which goes out live between 9:30-11:30am on Saturday 10th August, features Liv in a short piece recorded at Fusion Lifestyles pool in Camberwell, South London. Raising the profile of the sport of Freediving in the UK, Liv gives a quick guide to staying calm under pressure and explains how the lessons she has learnt as a top level freediver can benefit those in other sports and high stress roles. There is also featured video footage by Daan Verhoeven.
Picture Credit: Daan Verhoeven
BTSP (BT Sports Panel) (Saturdays, 9.30am, BT Sport 1) BTSP is today confirmed as the name of the new show broadcast live every Saturday morning by Tim Lovejoy with ex-England rugby international Matt Dawson, and special guests. A show of opinions, prediction, preview, review and laughs, BTSP is an interactive production which involves viewers at home through social media.
Liv Philip www.free-flowH2o.com e: hellofreeflow@gmail.com
Daan Verhoeven www.daanverhoeven.com www.fusion-lifestyle.com
As the six British athletes selected to represent the UK at the Team Freediving World Championships this year in France polish off their training, Liv Philip, one of the longest-serving and most consistent of all UK athletes has been placed fourth in the world overall for her performance over the past year in the annual World’s Absolute Freediver Awards (WAFA) 2011.
Liv received this award in 2010 also, but has since then increased her overall score (based on her performances in all competitive disciplines) by almost 20 points. Liv trains herself and runs training evenings at London Freedivers at Pools on the Park in Richmond, Surrey. As well as this, Liv also supports the British Freediving Association acting as their Training & Safety Officer. She is undoubtedly one of the most committed freedivers in the UK and the BFA is proud to have her representing the UK again at the Team Freediving World Championships, alongside teammates Georgina Miller (another long-standing competitive Freediver) and newcomer Beci Ryan.
The British men’s team will be represented this year by Gary McGrath in his first ever Worlds appearance, Tim Money who returns to competitive freediving after a few years out working in Australia (and getting married and having a baby!), and John Moorcroft, who was honoured with an Outstanding Achievement Award by the BFA for a decade of service to the freediving community earlier this year. John’s commitment to competitive freediving goes back to 2000 when he competed in the 3rd ever AIDA World Championships in Ibiza.
More information on Liv’s WAFA award can be found at on the apnea cz website or some behind-the-scenes info in the blog too. The full results can be viewed at http://apnea.cz/ranking.html?awards. The AIDA Team Freediving World Championships are being held this year in Nice, France from 8th-16th September. All athletes are looking for personal or team sponsorship.
To sponsor the athletes, please send an email to sponsorship or press
Mark Harris, also known as ‘The Blue Lightning’, sets UK freediving records in Free Immersion and Variable Weight.
Mark set the new British Variable Weight record to 80 metres, 15 metres deeper than the previous record set by Paul Whincup in 2005! He chose to pull himself back to the surface by using his arms only, despite having planned a Free Immersion record attempt on the same day! Indeed, not half an hour later he pulled himself down the rope again. Unfortunately he lost his nose clip shortly after leaving the surface, but he chose to carry on with one hand holding his nose, pulling himself down with one arm only, to reach 64 metres below the surface and back up for a very clean Free Immersion record.
On the same day, Ben Noble, also member of the BFA committee, became the deepest Australian freediver by breaking no less than 3 national records: a Free Immersion dive to 50 metres, a Variable Weight dive to 72 metres and 80 in the No-limits discipline!
Mark and Ben both are members of the BFA committee. On top of the huge amount of work required by their roles, Mark also manages to organize courses and training sessions for the Richmond freediving club and Ben works for the Australian AIDA and is a forum mentor on DeeperBlue.
Congratulations to both of them! More details and gossip can be found in this DeeperBlue thread.