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