Tag: Pool

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Phil Clayton sets new DNF record

On Sunday the 4th September, at the Auckland Freediving Club Deep Obsession competition Phil Clayton beat his standing UK DNF National Record of 138m with a dive of 144m. What makes this achievement remarkable is that the dive was done on exhale (slightly beyond a passive exhale). Phil has been training exhale DNF around one day per week as part of his training regime as it was much easier to train while travelling for business without 4+kg of weights!

As time went by Phil (and his dive buddies) were repeatedly surprised by longer and longer exhale dives with no apparent hypoxia. Following the Wellington Winter Champs in June it became apparent that an attempt on the National Record was possible on exhale.

The first attempt on Sat 3rd was unsuccessful with the dive terminated at 110m, thought to be due to excess CO2. Changing the breathe-up on the Sunday lead to a successful result!

Phil is now keen to get back in the sea and the local lake to start constant weight training after all this ‘exhale craziness’ and is rumoured to be thinking that Nice would be Nice….

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UK National Indoor Championships 2011

The weekend of 11-12 March saw the UK freediving community congregating in Liverpool’s fabulous state of the art Aquatics Centre for the annual indoor national championships.

Saturday saw an unusual dedicated day of no fins diving, with 15 athletes invited to compete. With the movable boom in place to provide the ideal 25m pool, things were all set for the no finners. Newly qualified from the BFA’s sponsorship programme, Dave Tranfield, was joined poolside by the experienced Sue Pugh to judge the day’s events and some hopeful record attempts.

First up were some solid dives by some new freedivers, including many new to no fins an encouraging sign for the growth of this often overlooked discipline. In the men’s event John Moorcroft came out on top with an impressive 130m swim, getting close to a new UK record. In the women’s event, Liv Philip extended her national record by 5m, setting a new mark of 111m.

Day 2 of the event brought the UK Championships proper, with athletes competing in static and dynamic. The dive of the day in the men’s competition was undoubtedly Dave King’s new UK dynamic record of 226m. Dave took the overall men’s championship for the second year running. Runner-up was Chris Crawshaw from the local Northern gang and in third place was Tim Money from London Freedivers in Richmond.

Liv Philip followed up on her DNF record by taking the women’s championship with two solid dives. London Freediver George Miller was second, and third in the UK championship was newbie from Apneist UK, Nikki Bream.

The highlight of the weekend however, was a courageous and successful dynamic from Mandy Buckley of 150m. Mandy has recovered from a serious illness over the last year and to see her back to her best was an inspiration for everyone present. Mandy will be swimming the Great North Swim on June 18 in aid of CLIC Sergeant and the RNLI. You can sponsor her by going to here. Last word of thanks goes to Steve Millard and his team for organising another very successful competition. The facilities at Liverpool are first class, the staff were incredibly helpful and everyone was made to feel very welcome. We look forward to competing in a major international event here soon, and fingers crossed even more sponsors will see the appeal and we will entice some continental divers over 🙂

We thank our current sponsors for helping this happen

Lifestyles Leisure
Sean Peters www.sppv.co.uk
George Stoyle www.earthinfocus.com
Orca wetsuits www.orca.com
Urban Gastropubs
Electrical lighting superstore
No-Tanx
Free divers

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NoTanx 5th Birthday Competition

This year NoTanx is holding its 5th annual Birthday competition on 19th March at Tooting Pool in South West London. It will include static and dynamic events, with a capacity for up to 45 athletes – both seasoned and newbies. The event is open to all freedivers, not just NoTanx divers.

NoTanxCru

NoTanx likes to focus on enjoyment and involvement as well as specific freediving skills and performance. Everyone is encouraged to coach other athletes as well as do their own dives, as buddying is a key aspect of all forms of freediving.

The competition will be held in two pools; it kicks off with the first official top in static at 4pm, followed by dynamics in a 33m pool starting at 7pm. Both pools have spectator areas, so bring your friends and family to watch and cheer you on. Registration is between 2-3pm. £15 for NoTanx members and £25 for non-members.

With two major pool competitions in March, the official British Open ‘ooop norf’ and the NoTanx ‘daaahn saarf’ there are no excuses this year for everyone not joining in the fun!

To register click here. Good luck everybody!

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The Great Northern – UK National (with guests) Pool Competition 2011

Apneists UK are delighted to be able to announce that once again we will be holding the BFA UK National Pool Freediving Competition. We are holding a small showcase dynamic no-fins competition on Saturday 12th March and be held at the Liverpool Aquatics Centre, Wavertree. This has kindly been sponsored by Lifestyle leisure who are also helping us host the main event. We have invited Male and female divers capable of breaking the UK record with that intention and we will open it up to divers from abroad to get their respective NR in DNF. Also it will be an opportunity for some elite divers to get their AIDA ranking points for this years World Championships later in the year so hopefully we will be well represented. The main event will be on Sunday 13th March 2011. The event will once again be called ‘The Great Northern’ because we can’t be bothered thinking of anything better and we liked that name anyway. We will be hosting the Static (STA) and Dynamic with Fins (DYN) or Dynamic no-fins (DNF) but being a 50m pool it is better suited for DYN.

Everybody is welcome!

The spaces are for seasoned athletes and also those new to the sport. I will ensure all the information you require if you are a ‘newbie’ is given to you and we will make sure you are welcomed and look after you. Everyone starts somewhere! There are around 40 spaces over the two days (this can be increased) to compete and you will receive an AIDA World ranking. Last year we saw many personal bests set and a NR at the venue because of the excellent facilities, relaxed atmosphere and.. I suppose the athletes themselves. The ‘with guests’ tag means that although it is the UK National competition that even if you are not a UK citizen you can compete, and in fact we would encourage it, Liverpool is next to a major city, and itself has an airport / trains for easy access. You could be amongst the next generation of successful Freedivers, or maybe you already are! What are you waiting for? We are also welcome those wanting to help. Some jobs are essential, the whole competition is set up to support the competing athletes so if you want to help let me know, we need at least 15-20 people to make it run smoothly. If you can help please contact Steve Millard

The Liverpool Aquatics Centre was the perfect venue last year for a Great competition. At the heart of the state-of-the-art facility is an Olympic sized pool with moveable floor, which is used as a training camp by some of the world’s best swimmers in the run up to the 2012 Olympic Games. Aside from the main pool (which can be divided into two if required) there is also an additional 20 metre training pool. For the Great Northern 2011 event the 20 metre training pool will be used in the morning to host the STA event and the 50m Olympic pool to hold the DYN event.

The Great Northern will provide the ideal opportunity for athletes in the UK and from the continent to gain AIDA ranking to be counted for their National Team selection. Focusing on STA and DYN. It’s also the perfect place to meet other Freedivers and meet some of the personalities in the sport. Please click click for pictures, testimonials and any other information from last years competition. I will update this soon.

Convinced? Please click here for your enrolment form.

Still not convinced? Turn up anyway, there is a free viewing gallery and after you have seen what its all about we will probably see you competing at next years event

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A thank you to the sponsors of the Great Northern 2010 – by Liv Philip

As the clocks sprang forwards on the 28th March, the Liverpool Aquatics Centre was the beautiful venue of the UK National Freediving Pool Championship and marked the day when UK Freedivers came out of hibernation after a long, cold winter. As one of the 20 athletes I’d arrived at the competition grateful for an occasion so early in the year. After a slow start to my 2010 season, it had motivated me to train and get me out of all the bad habits of the winter.

Dave King
Great Northern 2010 womens winners – Photo by Jean-Marc Kuffer

The day bought an interesting array of UK athletes from a broad selection of UK clubs together. Both the static and dynamic pools were perfect for the events, and the organisation, with Stuart Bond and Steve Millard both from Apneists UK (www.freedivers.co.uk) at the helm, left us athletes happy and relaxed to concentrate on our dives. There were some nice performances from newer divers and you could almost hear the rust falling off some of us more experienced ones. I was feeling a bit light on training so was really happy to take first place with 2 solid dives of 5.32 static and 133m dynamic putting some confidence in for later in the year. With many athletes achieving pbs, eye catching 150m dynamics from Stuart Bond and Mandy Buckley, & also with best newcomer Chris Laycock with a nifty 123m dynamic, Steves Northern Club Apneists UK looked on fine form on home turf with the men finishing 2nd, 3rd and 4th and two great swims from the ladies.

There was also good performances from George Miller and Sam Still who finished second winning trygon nose clips, and Stuart Bond and Sam Kirby receiving mono fin bags from No-Tanx for their third place but swim of the day had to go to Dave King with a groundbreaking dive of 217m dynamic for a new UK record, which not so long ago would have been a world record. He not only did a great swim, but he has such a fantastic attitude and is a great role model for other divers, that to see him do a dive like this was really fantastic.

As UK Champion, Id like to thank ORCA WETSUITS for supplying Dave & I with new suits, and on behalf of all the athletes to the entire dive team for all their hard work on a day which left you feeling very excited about UK Freediving.

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Great Northern 2010 – by Emma Farrell

On Sunday 28th March 2010 I, along with Matt Kitchen were the AIDA Judges for the BFA Great Northern Pool Competition at the Liverpool Aquatics Centre. For me, competitions are always an experience, but being out of the water made it a lot more fun.

Dave King

Being pool side and watching the athletes compete meant that not only did I have the benefit of seeing all the preparation, performances and technique, but I was also given an amazing snapshot of the state of UK Freediving in the run up to the team world championships in Okinawa and the world cup in Greece and it’s looking really healthy. This competition was all about unifying the various groups around the UK to put forward a united front.

First place for the men was taken by David King with a storming 6.58 static and 217m dynamic swim creating a new British record. He was coached fantastically by George Miller who came second in the women’s comp, their electric blue suits marking them out as team Smurf. The only thing missing was Papa.

Sam Still of Apneists UK training at the moment in London, came second for the men, since his phenomenal position as world champion just a few short years ago, and then semi-retirement after the Dahab bombings, Sam was poolside demonstrating Qi Gong and an incredible physique, and back in the water ‘just taking it easy’ with two solid white card performances. Stuart Bond of Apneists UK was just behind him in third with a lovely 150 dynamic.

The competition was organised by Steve Millard of www.freedivers.co.uk, assisted by Stuart Bond of the BFA. Steve has been instrumental in growing British Freediving in the North West and in a few short years has an active club of over 50 and great new talent including the Buckley mermaids (Mandy with a 150m dynamic and her sister-in-law Alison with a solid 100m in her first competition) and also Chris Laycock who won ‘best newbie’ with an easy 123 dynamic swim.

Even though the ladies were thinner on the ground and we were missing big hitters such as Sara Campbell, the competition was very close with great performances from Liv Philip who came first in front of George Miller and Sam Kirby.

As a judge, my job was made all the easier by incredible organisation and facility, support from a great team and well drilled athletes. click here to watch Daves amazing swim.

Sponsors:
Liverpool Aquatics Centre
BFA
First Prizes – Orca suit
Second Prizes – Trygon
Third Prizes – No Tanx monofin bags

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NoTanx Freediving Competition results

Saturday 13th March saw the UK’s Biggest Freediving Competition. 32 Clean performances by BFA members (Ady Hamilton did get a a technical red card for pushing on the bottom…. but then again he did walk 38m carrying 16Kg of weight!!)

Results…
1st place Lee Sheward (Biggest smile – Immersion Watch)
Joint 2nd Alan Barber (170m 98% grade – O’Neill Wetsuit)
Joint 2nd Jack Dybczak (Most relaxed dive – Immersion Stream Watch)
3rd Place Shared – Freya Greatwood, Ginny Kennedy, Bev Warner

NoTanx would like to thank all those who gave up their dive to help run the event.

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Great Northern Comp

Apneists UK are proud to announce they are hosting the BFA National pool competition on the 28th March 2010. The event will include both the Static (STA) and Dynamic with fins (DYN) disciplines. It has been officially recognised by AIDA International as a National with guests competition so all athletes will receive an AIDA worldwide ranking. This is important as many of the athletes are using the competition to gain points for the upcoming World Championships in Japan.

Many of the UKs most respected freedivers will either be competing or providing services for the smooth running of the event so it will be a great opportunity to meet some really good people. If you would like to come and support the event or spectate everyone is welcome.

Directions to the event and further details can be found by clicking here.

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The Laurie Comp Results

The NoTanx Laurie Comp ’09 went off without a hitch… 21 Competitors gave us plenty of performances to judge, film and analyse! The winner (voted for by the other competitors) was Lucy.. Her day is blogged on YouTube.

She won an Immersion Dive Watch, “Well Done Lucy”. In joint second Alan Barber and Sue White went away with brand new O’Neill Wetsuits…

The Laurie Comp

Unfortunately some people made some silly mistakes leading to lost points and a couple of DQs.Kevin won the Boobie prize for the silliest mistake (A dip BEFORE official top.. and Coach Touch!), but even this wasn’t a bad prize… the most expensive snorkel in the world supplied by Aquanaut Divers. All in all lots of smiles and fun.. and a big thank you to the Officials and Judges.

Keep an eye on the BFA site for the NoTanx Lake Comp in September….

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The Laurie Comp – 11th July 2009

The Laurie Comp is being held this Saturday 11th July at Tooting Leisure Centre. Looking like its going to be a good event, 20 competitors and lots of first timers (which is what it is all about).. All being run by volunteers from the NoTanx Club.

As always the winners will be voted for by the Competitors… 1st Prize is a Shinny New Immersion Dive Computer Other Prizes include DVD’s, Masks, T-Shirts etc.

Everyone is welcome to come along and watch/help out from 2:30 til 9:30….