Vendredi 1 mai 2009

Nimes sets new competition standards

Nimes, south of France, is a nice town, well known for its corridas and ferias.
But, this week-end was 100% freediving oriented with an already well known competition. with more than 70 athletes participating, Nimes is surely the biggest competition in the french freediving calendar this year.

The pool is huge, providing a 50m olympic pool (perfect for the dynamic with fins), 25m wide (perfect for the no fins) and a static dedicated pool.
This environment is simply perfect for performances. Combined with a very good organization, this event was a great success, announcing possibilities for even bigger events. Well done SCPL (Nimes's freediving club) !

The level of competitors present was high, with all the AIDA french representants present 'in force'. This Nimes competition was 'the' french indoor meeting of the year, with no doubt !
 
The first event, static, started the competition with nice performances :
with 7 persons over 6' (Pradon Jean-Michel 06:43, Charras christian 06:34, Poggi Patrick 06:31, Jérôme CHAPELLE 06:26, Guillaume Néry 06:26, Morgan Bourc his 06:02) and one over 7' (Christian Maldamé  07:01), the level was set up high for the next disciplines to come.
 
The final podium was staying open for at least 10 freedivers...
 
For the women, Francine goes over 5 minutes with 5'12'', things are getting serious for her :-)
 
The next discipline, dynamic with fins, was announcing good performances to come.
And it came...

I was finally the 'lucky' winner of the day with a very nice 200m Personal Best, allowing me to take the first place of the final ranking. Just behind, Morgan, Christian and Fabry were not far, doing very serious performances.
 
The 6 best performances of the DYN are listed here :
1 Christian Maldamé 200m
2 Morgan Bourc his  175m
3 charras christian 156m
4 Fabry Mathieu     150m
5 Guillaume Néry    143m
6 Frank Caillet    136m
 
On the Women side, Alice sets-up new standards reaching a very nice distance of 150m (equals the french national record) and win this discipline easily. Francine follows with a nice PB of 124m, with a new fin, Well done Francine ! But it was not enough to win the final ranking of the competition that Alice secured with her impressive 150m.

In option, a limited number of athletes (20) could do a performance in DNF, not accounted for the final ranking.
Men and women offered a nice show. I noted a nice 'head to head' between Guillaume and Morgan. In the end, Morgan won this contest with an over 128m swimm. Well done Morgan !

 Video : The champions heat (DNF) : M. Bourchis (128m) Vs G. Nery (DSQ-SP)

In the end of the DNF, Cyril offered us a nice show of 'how to secure a protocol in Samba' making all of us laugh... 

The final ranking gives :

Women
1. Alice, Modolo
2. KREISS, Francine
3. Florence, Chepetkine


Men
1 Maldamé, Christian
2 Bourc his, Morgan
3 christian, charras
4 Néry, Guillaume
5 Jean-Michel, Pradon
6 Thomé, Fabrice
 
We could note, the 'come back' of 2 strong freedivers of the french freediving circuit : Christian Charras and Jean-Michel Pradon. Coming back after 2-3 years break (at least). They are still very fit and able to fight for the podium, congratulations...
 
Detailed results can be found here :
http://www.freedivecentral.com/a-results.php?num_competicao=63
 
News on France 3 :
Par Christian Maldamé - Publié dans : competition
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Mercredi 15 avril 2009

Aix les Bains competition in the Sun

The Aix les bains competition is a new competition in the freediving AIDA French cup, organized by Cyril Pelletier, the brother of Jerome Vigoureux Pelletier.
I must say, that with the help of Jérome Vigoureux Pelletier, Gregory Piazzola and a set of motivated freedivers
providing safety and help, it was a full success.
 
As discussed with them, they might extend the concept next year to a bigger version with more freedivers participating, and why not with a constant weight disciplin added ... That's a very good idea ;-)
 
Most of the present freedivers were 'regional' freedivers coming from the close towns, like Grenoble, Lyon, Geneva. Some germans and czechs joined also to participate to the event. Guillaume Nery took part in the event, that was lasting one day more, on monday, with conferences dedicated to students.
 
Atmosphere was friendly, as most of the times in the AIDA freediving competitions. The competition included the static discipline as well as one Dynamic chosen between with or without fins.
 
For the men :
Fred Monnot from Club des Dauphins-Geneva does a very nice 4'40'' and a good 100m dynamic. A very good result for a first competition ...
Guillaume had a hard static day and goes out after 5'20''. He is trying a new warm-up technique, that apparently did not work this time. He will then do an easy 106m in DNF, announcing better performances to come for the next competitions. 
On my side, A very pleasant static, with soft contractions leads me to a nice 6'58''.
I then chosed to do the Dynamic without fins, due to the 25m pool length. I finally do a nice 150m and get a 5 point penalty, due to an early grab of the pool.
Pascal Huron manages to do a new personnal Best with a very nice 6'28'' in static. The Lyon team was strong and showed a good presence during the competition.

Video : Last heat of dynamic (no fins) - P. Huron (DSQ-SP) and C. Maldamé (150m)

For the women :
The Clermont Ferrand team takes the lead, with Alice Modolo and Rosa Kong A Siou.
Alice with a very nice 143m and a 4'25'' static easily takes the 1st place, followed by Rosa 100m dynamic and 3'11'' static.

The final Combined results podium is below
total points
Women
1. MODOLO  Alice 71.5 53.0 124.5
2. KONGASIOU Rosa 49.0 38.2 87.2
3. MIGARD  Albine 40.0 47.0 87.0
Men
1. MALDAME Christian 70.0 83.6 153.6
2. WULFF Ulrich  62.5 69.6 132.1
3. PLISSON Gildas  62.0 39.6 101.6
The nice sun, bathing the pool and the competitors outside, remained till the end, for the final podium, enlighting the good results of the day...

We will come back next year !
Par Christian Maldamé - Publié dans : competition
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Lundi 16 mars 2009

Oslo Ice Challenge

Depth diving under-ice... That was the program for this first ever organized new style competition.

We decided to go for this competition some months ago, with Guillaume Nery, to have good time and fun and to change ourselves from our 'classical' depth competition.
Depth was limited to 52m, due to the lake maximum depth of 54m. Finally not so much, but, in regards to these special icy conditions, the challenge still remains.
In my case, I unfortunately did not found buddies to train in cold waters these last weeks. I was then lacking references and depth training. But as said, the goal was more to have fun  than really 'perform'.

I must say that we had a lot of fun:
The place, a frozen lake close to Oslo was beautiful. Snow everywhere covering the thick Ice (around 60cm), and a superb landscape of hills and forest around.
It was snowing both days, and we had to walk 20 minutes to reach the ice holes.
The freezing part was close to the lake : a 15cm layer of 1°C water was covering the ice, and we were literaly walking in this water... that of course was filling up our boots...
The conditions looked rough, but we were all laughing from this...
The ranking was giving an advantage to CNF, as a 1.35 multiplying factor was applied on these performances. On 3 performances, only the best one was counting for the final ranking....
I finally did 50m in CWT (with a 52m announcement, early turn ...), 52m in FIM and 42m in CNF. The first dive was a bit annoying due to some equalization problems linkedto my wetsuit that sticked my ears, but the 2 other ones were pure pleasure. I was surprised to feel so well in this 1°C water, even down there in the 'night' (the lights were not working properly). I really enjoyed these dives a lot. Guillaume as well apparently.



As we did the same depth with C. Ernest a 'frozen viking static', in the cold water, was organized to determine the 2nd and 3rd places. I quited the static fight at 3'38'', a bit earlier than c. Ernest that finally won the 2nd place.

Finally the ranking is:
1st : Guillaume Nery with 45m CNF ( 52m CWT, 52m FIM)
2nd : Christian Ernest - Sweden - 42m CNF (35m CNF, 40m CNF)
3rd : Christian Maldamé - 42m CNF ( 50m CWT, 52m FIM)

2 guys, Stig and Thomas, tried to dive without wetsuit... They were able to dive, but finally not to reach their announcements of 52m. Both of them turned earlier, around 20-30m. But we were impressed by the 'show' ! Stig was kind of frozen after his dive ;-)
The only 'brave' girl of the competition was  Elizabeth Kristoffersen that did all of her dives, and finally won the female contest !

After the competition, Elizabeth found us a place to practise cross country skiing. With Stig, Martin, Dan, Guillaume and Elizabeth. We had a lot of fun together skiing and enjoying the ski tracks of  Oslo. In Oslo, you easily take the subway to go to ski (downhill and cross coutry 10 minutes from the center ! ), which was kind of amazing for us.



Here are some links to discover new pictures/movies and articles... Media and Press largely covered this 'new' event :

 Diaporama : http://pa.photoshelter.com/c/felixfeatures/gallery-slideshow/G0000Ec2A8DfBADU/?start=

Newspapers :
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/othersports/swimming/4967486/Worlds-first-under-ice-free-diving-competition.html

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/article2310789.ece

http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/general/others/freediving-sport-taken-to-a-new-extreme-1642100.html

Stig's dive... No wetsuit ! : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-zMi6boeWSY

Martin's blog :http://martin-gk.blogspot.com/

Par Christian Maldamé - Publié dans : competition
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Dimanche 1 février 2009

Initial start of the season : good time and results

First test of the season , the 'Coupe des dauphins 2009' is always a good way to comeback to competition after the winter break.
A good way to go back to training after the christmas period, that is not a particular 'sporty' time

Coupe des Dauphins 2009 - Geneva/Switzerland - 24/25 January

This edition was once again a full success. A top organization by Nadya Foisy and Mario Merazzi, A good help from numerous members of the club and also on my side concerning the site and web aspects (registration forms and so on).
Freedivers from the all Europe made the trip to Geneva, even if this year was not as full as last edition 2008.
The level was here, and one could not let it go to be able to get a podium.

On the side of some nice performances from Nicolas Guerry in STA, from Betty wolfer in DYN, or from Joanna Massacand in STA, the Buzz of the competition came from this guy registered as David M, that made an easy astonishing 8'36'' in STA and got disqualified by a stupid hand shake from his coach... This guy announced performances of over 10' in Static and nobody knew him !! After a careful study of the case, we found some veryvery strange information about him : http://www.merlini.com/Site/Main.html
This guy is with no doubt a great magician, but, the freediving community is still wondering if this a 'real' freediver. For those interested, you can find interesting discussion on the subject on this forum :
http://forums.deeperblue.com/freediving-competitions/81749-8th-coupe-des-dauphines.html

On my side, the goal was more to test myself after a 3 months break, to be able to have serious references for the season. On this aspect I must say that it was a success. Without serious training, I did quite serious performances, and that clearly motivated myself to go further and go back to serious training.
To sum-up, I did : 
133m in DNF, 175m in DYN, and 6'11' in STA... Which is quite good according to my training !
And I finally win DNF, DYN, and the overall ranking, which really satisfied me in the end
On the Women side, Jarmila Slovencikova (World champion on CNF 2007) wins the DYN and the overall ranking.


This nice picture is by Jerome Vigoureux Pelletier

All participants once again fully appreciated this very well organized competition.
the final rankings are available here :
Overall ranking
Ranking by discipline

After the comp Jarmila, Elizabeth and Martin stayed at home. And we had the pleasure to freedive in the lake and have a sauna together, followed by a very local 'fondue'. The next day we even went cross country skiing with Jarmila in the jura (tchec women are very good in this sport...). Good relaxing time and fun sport gave us a full recovery after this competition

 Salon de la Plongée (Diving exposition) - Paris/France - 10/11 January
This 2009 edition was a good place to find back the all french national team, but also a big part of the french freediving and scuba diving world.

Unfortunately. I must say that the exhibition that we planned was not really well organized by the salon organization. And we finally had to find another way of making the show... We finally ended-up with a static competition between Guillaume, Morgan and myself to give some fun for the spectators !

The rest was just good time with people and a nice party on saturday night ;-)
 
Par Christian Maldamé - Publié dans : competition
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Jeudi 15 janvier 2009

Worlds 2008 - The French National team video

Video clip of the winning team at the Freediving AIDA team world championship 2008

Production/Edition : roman.brunisholz@bluewin.ch

.....starring......

Athletes : Guillaume Nery, Morgan Bourc'his,Christian Maldamé,Julie Gautier,Solenn Launay,Francine Kreiss
Coach : Cyril Paulet
Selector : Gregory Piazzola
Par Christian Maldamé - Publié dans : World Championship 2008
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Mercredi 31 décembre 2008

The programme : 1st Quarter 2009

Beginning of 2009 is a new start of a competition season.

This season will be particularly long, as we know that it will end-up with the depth World Championship 2009, that will take place in the bahamas, end November 2009.

For this reason, I prefer not to start too early and will keep some strength and mental force for the end of year.

Heavy training is physically but also mentally demanding. This mental aspect is probably the hardest to manage : keep the high motivation to push yourself more and more... Knowing that this effort will need important sacrifice in your daily life : putting aside a part of your social life, being sometimes very tired, missing important 'local' events, refusing attractive invitation, and so on...
In a way building up a calendar is an important task, to keep in mind these aspects.

I personnally like more freediving in open waters (pool stays a training for me). For that reason, winter is more dedicated to foundation  training and fun than anything else...

Check what I plan for these 3 first months 2009:

Major event for the beginning of this year :
  • Salon de la Plongée (Diving exposition) - Paris/France - 10/11 January
The all French team will propose conferences and demonstration in the pool of the Salon. link

If all the conditions are met, a New World Record Attempt is planned in 'Team static', with the french men Natioanl team : Guillaume, Morgan and myself.
Goal : beat the 20'13'' static world record set-up by the Danish national team
  • Coupe des Dauphins 2009 - Geneva/Switzerland - 24/25 January
This major competition of the freediving winter calendar will host, once again, the best freedivers of Europe that will come to compete.
For those interested, registration is still open there : link
  • Oslo Ice challenge - Oslo/Sweden - 7/8 March
A fun competition, the first competition ever under Ice ! A very nice challenge to try :-)
more information here : link

And for the rest of the season ? Everything stays open...
Par Christian Maldamé - Publié dans : competition
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Profil

 

Holder of National Records

  • CNF: 62m

 

My next competitions

Marseille Indoor - France - 2009-06-06 - 2009-06-07

2nd Mediterranean Freediving Meeting - Greece - 2009-06-22 - 2009-07-05

Individual Indoor World Championships - Denmark - 2009-08-17 2009-08-23

Individual Depth World Championships - Bahamas - 2009-11-23 2009-12-06 

 

Album photos

Voir tous les albums

 

Contact

christian.maldame@gmail.com

 

Disciplines in freediving

  • DYN / DNF : swimming underwater in a pool, with / without fins
  • STA: holding the breath while laying still
  • CWT / CNF : diving down with / without fins
  • FIM : diving by pulling yourself down a rope

 

Sponsors and help




Thanks to :
Guy Ack. in particular for his help and training advices

 

 
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