Tag: Rebecca Coales

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Freediving record is broken by Rebecca Coales at Manchester Competition – 186m Dynamic with Fins

Rebecca Coales 186m Dynamic National Record

On Saturday 29th November, Rebecca Coales, trained by Steve Millard of the freedivers.co.uk group, extended her own national record of 179m in Dynamic apnea, to an impressive distance of 186m, at Grand Central pool operated by Life Leisure (www.lifeleisure.net). Rebecca’s underwater swim with a monofin took 3 minutes and was overseen by internationally qualified judges from the main Freediving agency, AIDA International (www.aidainternational.org).

When asked about breaking her 5th national record, Rebecca had this to say:

“As always Steve’s competition ran very smoothly and I had nothing to worry about apart from my dive. Safety, judging and organisation was very slick. I had a warm-up dive in Berlin two weeks before this one and that gave me more confidence in extending my personal best. It was also a chance to try my new Aqua Lung Freedive suit, which has performed well in both competitions, and looks really stylish. A big thank-you to Aquasphere UK for providing me with a suit, goggles and training aids. I’ll continue to work with my coach Steve Millard who has supported me over the last two years. We also look ahead to the AIDA pool World Championships in Belgrade where I hope to compete against the world’s best. I can’t wait!”

The national record was part of a larger competition, where athletes from around the UK and representing a variety of nations, came to Stockport to compete in one of three disciplines: Dynamic apnea with fins (DYN), Dynamic no fins (DNF) or Static apnea (STA). In DYN the athlete swims the length of a pool as far as they can on one breath and with the use of either a monofins or bi-fins; with DNF the athlete swims a style of breast stroke under the water without the use of fins; and with STA, the athlete lies stationary, face down on the surface of the water.

Rebecca won the overall female competition, but an excellent swim by Beci Ryan of 163m was a very respectable second position. In third place was Scottish number one no fins diver, Katey McPherson, with a swim of 107m DNF, no mean feat in a 50m pool which is much harder than the usual 25m pool as you do not get the benefit of as many push offs from the wall.

Adam Drzazga won overall for the men, with a 136m DYN swim, in second place Lorenzo Baldecchi for a 05:07 STA and in third place was Hungarian freediving champion Mike Benke. Eoin Clarke swam a solid and easy 104m DNF and broke the second national record of the evening, this time for Ireland! Jason Kirkpatrick was the ‘opener’ and therefore not officially a competitor into the competition, put in a 05:22 STA which would have won the men’s title; after only a few months training in the sport he is one to watch out for.

The competition was a small National competition, part funded by the BFA (www.britishfreediving.org), and was great practice for the athletes to get ready for the International competition we have on the 21st and 22nd March 2015 in Liverpool (facebook.com/Apneistsukfreedivingcompetitions).

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Rebecca Coales takes Dynamic National Record to 179m

Rebecca Coales Dynamic National record
Picture Credit: Nick Robertson-Brown

10th July 2014; — On the 6th July, 2014 Rebecca Coales took the previous female dynamic with fins (DYN) record to 179m at the Life Leisure, Grand Central 50 metre Pool in Stockport (www.lifeleisure.net/enterprise/grandcentralpools). For those new to freediving, DYN is swimming as far as you can horizontally in a swimming pool with a mono fin or bi-fins on one breath of air. Rebecca already holds the current UK dynamic without fins record (DNF).

The DYN record had previously been held by Ruth Griffin, incredibly since 2009. Rebecca, with a very comfortable dive beat the 175m on the board, surfacing with great control and suggesting she is well within her limits. The whole dive took 2 minutes 36 Seconds.

Previous to the 2009 record, another female freediver, who also trained at Grand Central pools, had held it before Ruth: Mandy ‘ the mermaid ‘ Buckley. Many freediving champions and record holders have been coached there and it is a centre of excellence with the swimmers from Stockport Metro training there.

Rebecca is a founder member of the Bristol Freedivers group (www.bristolfreedive.org.uk), where she trains with friends. She is a relative newcomer to the competition circuit, only starting to explore her potential in the last 18 months, starting with a no-fins clinic, and mono fin clinic with Steve Millard of the Apneists UK group (www.learn2freedive.com), based in the North of the UK. Rebecca runs the Om Diver Yoga website (www.omdiver.co.uk) and runs Yoga courses which seem to be perfect cross training for freedivers. She trains with Bristol Freedivers regularly and is sponsored by Aqua Sphere (www.aquasphereswim.com), and wears the Aqua Skins suit.

The team who came and supported Rebecca and her coach Steve Millard at the event were:

International Judges: David Tranfield and Gary Lowe

Safety Divers: Matthias Ruttimann and Rebecca Warren

Surface video: Paul Butterworth

Videographer / Photographer: Martin Toole (http://mtoole.co.uk)

Photographers: Frogfish Photography (http://frogfishphotography.com/underwater.html)

Photographer: Dean Martin, Aqua Sphere (www.aquasphereswim.com)

Medic: Rebecca McCabe

Rebecca would like to thank the management and staff of Life Leisure, Grand Central Pool for their continued support and hosting of this event.

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Three National Records Made at 5th Great Northern International Pool Competition, Liverpool

Rebecca Coales breaks own UK National Record for a third time

 
Picture Credit: Daan Verhoeven

Tuesday 2 April 2014; — The 2014 Great Northern International Pool competition, incorporating the UK BFA National Pool Championships, took place on the weekend of 22 and 23 March, at Lifestyle Fitness Aquatic Centre in Liverpool (www.liverpool.gov.uk/lifestyles). Three national records were broken and there were many impressive performances by experienced and new athletes alike.

This was the competition’s fifth year and organiser Steve Millard of Apneists UK (www.freedivers.co.uk), delivered yet another fantastic competition, catering for 51 athletes representing 15 countries: ‘We had an amazing helper list, with safety divers based all over the UK coming from different clubs to support what is the most inclusive competition in the calendar. The media set was made up of many of the organiser’s favourite photographers and videographers, all highly skilled and each having their own take on shooting good footage.’ The competition was made up of a combined point score over three disciplines: dynamic no fins (DNF) on day one, static (STA), and dynamic with fins (DYN) on day two.

Antonio Del Duca travelled all the way from Venezuela to compete and with three solid performances he secured himself first place out of the men (142m DNF, 209m DYN, 06:11 STA). Second place went to Roman Walczyk of Poland (155m DNF, 205m DYN, 05:24 STA), and third to British Tim Money (117m DNF, 161m DYN, 05:31 STA). And as this was an International and National competition, the UK podium was made up of Tim Money placed first, Gary Lowe second (126m DNF, 167m DYN, 04:30 STA), and Gary McGrath in third place (100m DNF, 150m DYN, 05:20 STA). There were other notable male accomplishments with UK athletes Chris Crawshaw swimming 146m DNF, Nick Uzel 124m DNF, Adam Drzazga completing a hold of just under 7 minutes and Hungary’s Mike Benke and Romania’s Constantin Timosca both swimming themselves into national record territory with a 142m DNF and 146m DYN respectively.

The ladies gave a good show and were no less exciting with three British athletes taking the place on the podium for the International and UK part of the competition. Rebecca Coales delivered three well-executed dives, breaking her own national record for a third time no less, in the discipline of DNF with a mighty swim of 145m! Coales also swam 154m DYN and held her breath for 05:27 for STA. Georgina Miller took second place (105m DNF, 139m DYN, 06:15), and Beci Ryan came in third (129m DNF, 151m DYN, 04:35 STA).

As with previous years, there were a number of newbies taking part with some excellent accomplishments. The award for Best Female Newbie was given to British Claire Ellwood and Best Male Newbie to Jev Maligins from Latvia who both received three well-earned white cards for promising performances.

Steve had a wonderful group of volunteers on hand to help ensure the smooth running of the event. The safety crew as usual were spot on and the judges Pim Vermeulen, David Tranfield, Christina Suck and Kate Jardine were professional, encouraging and welcoming to all. The sponsors support and generosity in supplying fabulous prizes, helped make the competition even more special, they were: the British Freediving Association, Fins 4 U (www.fins4u.com), Aqua Sphere (www.aquasphereswim.com/uk), GLowe Fluid Goggles (gazza_lowe@hotmail.com), Lifestyles Fitness (www.liverpool.gov.uk/lifestyles), Orca (www.orca.com/gb-en), Apneists UK (www.freedivers.co.uk) and Blue Water Diving School (www.bluewater-freediving.co.uk).

Thank you Steve Millard for putting everything together and making it all possible!

Video link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KZs5eO6Vlp8

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Another Freediving record falls during Huddersfield competition… this time Dynamic No Fins (DNF)

Rebecca Coales, trained by Steve Millard of the freedivers.co.uk group, managed to extend her own record from 120 metres to 134 metres distance underwater swimming doing just breast stroke. The total dive time took 2 minutes and 52 seconds at the Huddersfield Stadium health and fitness complex run by Kirklees leisure kirkleesactive.co.uk on Sunday the 17th November. It was overseen by internationally qualified judges from the main Freediving agency, AIDA International.

Rebecca is a yoga teacher and uses a wide range of yoga techniques in her training to build physical strength for swimming, mental focus and relaxation. Rebecca said “The competition atmosphere was very relaxed and so focusing on my dive felt easy. My main problem has been shaking off a winter cold in time for my performance. Rebecca prepares for her dives with gentle stretches, music and a deep guided relaxation. She is a founder member of the Bristol Freedivers group and also trains with a local fin swimming club… omdiver.co.uk

A number of athletes from around the UK came to Huddersfield compete in one of three disciplines. Dynamic apnea with Fins (DYN), which is swimming horizontally, as far as one can, wearing a single mono-fin or bi-fins. Dynamic no fins (DNF), swimming as far horizontally as one can with breast stroke. And static apnea (STA), lying stationary holding your breath for as long as you can. Each discipline has a point score, the highest point score wins, simple. We also have depth disciplines but this competition just concentrated on the pool.

Other note-able results were a 152 metre swim from Bart Lubecki of our Liverpool club using a mono-fin. Masa Sorn took the overall second place turning at 150 metres, also mono-fin propelled. And 5 minute 10 second breath hold from relative newcomer Jason Amson-Orth, and a 4 minute 46 second breath hold from Deb Gaskell, who only started freediving in the last few months.

As Freediving grows steadily in the North of England, we have been running professional courses and have had groups operating for well over a decade. Freediving however isn’t just about competition; it is also an enjoyable recreational activity taking us to all parts of the country. freedivers.co.uk started in Manchester but we have clubs in Liverpool, some in Yorkshire, Wales, Scotland and Crewe with people travelling to us from far afield. There are many opportunities for people to start to try Freediving nowadays. It is a great sport for increasing fitness and losing weight, as a confidence builder for Scuba divers, for snorkelers we can give you an improvement in style and ability helping those wanting to explore the reefs on holiday and of course it holds the exciting possibility of records for those who have good swimming style.

Freediving is an extremely personal sport, you do your own dive on the day, but at the same time you never dive alone without someone properly looking after your safety. I think this, in part, is one of the reasons for the strong, welcoming, community spirit within the sport and, all divers encourage the best out of their peers whatever their goal may be.

This competition was also be a good opportunity to make sure every wrinkle is ironed out of the background organisation for the International competition we have on the 22nd/23rd March 2014 in Liverpool. We have some camera testing to do to make it really special. Above is the intro video from this years competition, videos of Huddersfield will go up on the ApneistsUK facebook page in the next couple of days Apneistsukfreedivingcompetitions

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The UK Female Dynamic No Fins (DNF) Freediving record is broken!

On the 31st July, 2013 at 10.05pm Rebecca Coales broke the current female DNF record at the Total Fitness centre in Walkden, North Manchester. For those new to Freediving, DNF is swimming as far as you can horizontally in a swimming pool without the aid of fins.

The record had previously been held continuously, by Liv Philip, since 2007. Rebecca with a very comfortable dive beat the 116m that was on the board, and pushed the distance to 120m, which is well within her Personal best (PB), in a dive time of 2:24 minutes.

Rebecca is a founder member of the Bristol No Tanx Freedivers group where she trains with friends. She was a relative newcomer to the competition circuit, only starting to explore her potential in the last 6 months starting with a no-fins clinic, and mono fin clinic with Steve Millard of the Apneists UK group learn2freedive , based in the North of the UK. Recently she earned the right to represent her country in the World Freediving Pool Championships and with this new record it has placed her firmly on the map. Rebecca runs the Yoga website and courses which is the perfect cross training for Freedivers.

The video and a short story of the dive can be found here.

Record attempts can be organised for those wishing to gain National records in the UK. Thanks to the dream team who came and supported the event.

Athlete: Rebecca Coales
Organiser: Steve Millard

Judge: Gary Lowe
Judge: David Tranfield

Judges Assistant: Fiona Cahill

Safety Diver: James Cluskey
Safety Diver: Steve Millard

Videographer / Photographer: Sean Peters http://www.sppv.net/

Surface Coach: John Moorcroft

Medic: Dr P. Taylor

Thank you to the management and staff of Total Fitness Walkden for hosting the event and their continued support of UK Freediving athletes and students. Please visit here for more details to join the gym.