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...

Remember my last post : the greek have a comfortable advance in the ranking, the Kiwis collapsed, the French and the tchecks have 3 points of difference and fight for the podium, and very close behind are the Swedish and the finnish, followed by the Danish.

First act : the announcements
Tuesday we discover the annoucements of the teams...
We announced very high performances : very risky, but we did not want to 'give' the other nations the opportunity to 'control' ourselves.
And here comes the list of announcements : Morgan is the last one of the Wednesday with 153m.
Guillaume comes the second day with 1m, and I... I am the last one of the last heat of the competition with 153m, with... Martin Stepanek, in person, on my side. We are competing with the tchecs for a medal and this is the last heat... Everything will be played on this last dive !

You have to know that the supposed 25m pool is in fact 24.82m long. Which gives then 24m if you achieve a full length -> this is why certain result will show 149m or 173m...

On Wednesday everything begins :

At first Dave Mullins, begins the day and easily sets-up a new World record with an incredible 248m.
It is now said, the Kiwis have nothing to lose, they will give everything, even if they risk a Black-out.
William Trubridge follows soon and does it ... A black-out, that will disqualify him after a 200m dive.

No greeks are competing this day, they are all on thursday.

The tcheck Petr Vala does 182m. The team explodes in hurrah... They really feel good after this long dive.

But wait, here comes Morgan... Fit and ready, he goes and slides easily in water, turns at 150 and keeps on going. at 173m he turns again and slides slowly... almost until the end of the pool. Exit, protocol on the moving line, clean 'I am OK'... Yes that's a marvelous 195m long dive. A lot of points, and the tchecks are not so happy any more now ;-) !

For the girls :
Natalia Molchanova secures a nice 173m.
Julie Gautier does a 124m dive with a safe exit.
Joanna Massacand does a very nice 104m.

After this first day, everything still remains : the competition France/tchec republik is still on, and the greek are going to enter the pool to win the gold medal.

On thursday the tension and stress is at the top. The podium is still fully open for the 2nd and 3rd places if no errors are made.

first of all, the kiwis, with Ant Williams, that does a Black-out on an over 200m dive.
the swedish, with Johann that unfortunately misses his dive, Weine makes a huge 198m.
On the finnish side, the good points come in with the all team making safe and long dives...

On the french side, Guillaume swims and exits at 140m experiencing the hot water swimm (34°C !!) : contractions come late, but fast and take you by surprise... Happily he does the protocol and gets a white card.
Francine does a nice and clean 104m
Solenn does a hard but safe 108m
With these good performances the girls will end at the 6th rank in the final ranking.

On the swiss side :
Nicolas does a clean 173m setting-up a new swiss record. Well done buddy !
Claudia does an impressive 154m for a new swiss record... Congratulations Claudia !

2 easy 100m dives for the nice russian girls, Natalia Avseenko and Olga Suryakova, will allow them to secure the gold medal for the women ranking.

then comes the greeks :
Dimitris swims and exits at 164m at the mid of the pool. he stupidly puts his mouth in the water to remove his goggles and gets a red card ! the greeks lose the Gold medal !
The suspense is coming back and with the greeks out, the french and tchecks now fight for the gold medal. Behind are the finnish, followed by the 'always there' danish.

Here is the other Petr from the tcheck team, after 152m he comes out... clean.

Now we are at the end of the competition.
Manolis Giankos does a very nice dive over 200m, for the honor of the greek team.

And here comes the clash for the Gold medal:
Martin stepanek and... Myself. Head to head, side by side.
There is 1 point in advance for the french team only ! If martin does 2m more than me or more, we are 2nd (assuming that I do a safe exit over 153m), if not, we are the World champion.

It is 17h40... All the teams, athletes, spectators of the world championship are here, around the pool.
We are both preparing ourselves.
I can ear the strong inhales and exhales of Martin on my side.
I am in full tension, but relaxed since 2 hours at least, that I spent doing Yoga.
I want to forget about him and all the people looking at us, I want to be focused on my performance only. I want to feel myself alone with myself and the french team.

Cyril gives me a last word : 'we are with you, do your best'
countdown 10,5,4,3,2,1, Official top.... And we go together

I feel good, and slide in a good style, I decide not to try to look at Martin.
around 100m my first contractions come, I really feel good at this stage, my turns are smooths even if they are not perfect.
125m turn, I take a look on the side and see Martin. He is far, but I can not see if he is in front of me (I guessed that first) or behind me. I stay focused on my target ... Mini 153m, and 173m is the real goal.
150m turn, good, everything is nice, some lactic acid but not much. I keep on going, here is the 173m wall I touch it slowly and exit. I feel good, take my time to remove my equipment and do my protocol 'I am OK'.
Cyril is looking at me with a huge smile, he makes me a symbol of a medal with his hands.

On the other side of the pool, Martin stepanek did a very hard exit. With the applauses of the spectactors I guess that his protocol was finally right. But I don't know how long his dive was: 150m+ or close to 200m ??

I still can not guess which medal we will get ... Gold or Silver ??
 
White card ! I yell a huge 'yessssss', Cyril shouts 'we are world champion' and jumps in the water, all the french team follows, girls included.
I am so happy, but still can not realize !
After some minutes we join the tcheck team and congratulate them. The russians girls (world champion) join us for some pictures.

We are all so happy. We jump and do splashes in the water.
What an incredible drama and suspense until the last minute of the world championship.

Now, time for party !
the friday will be the closing ceremony with the podiums, in a full happiness.
On saturday, we land in Geneva with Morgan and are welcomed by Roman.
A short flight to Nice, and the Marseille and Nice freedivers are waiting for us with champagne !
We are so happy to share this happiness with them!


Thanks to all of our supports and sponsors : Aquasphere, the CIPA, AIDA France... And all the people that believed in us and helped us.
Thanks to Guy that helped me in my mental preparation.
Thanks to my club teammates that followed me and helped me during my training.

And a huge final thanks to my teammates Morgan and Guillaume, Cyril (the incredible coach) and Greg (the huge selector)...
Unity and full respect between us, was the key to success : no individuality but a single united team for success !

After 2 days of break the Static event began very quick for the French team : Guillaume, Christian, Morgan and Francine the first day, Solenn and Julie the second day.
2 days of and incredible drama for the static events. The full results are available in the gallery.

The first day, the men's french team began with Guillaume and a clean 6'10''
I follow and do a good 6'37'', I go out just at the right time, another white card.
Morgan follows and do a 6'07'', personal best for him

We end-up with an average of 6'18''. Our goal was to secure a 6'20'' to limit the losses.
True, the static is not our speciality and we wanted to avoid any red card. We end-up 7th on the static ranking.
We knew that the other nations were stronger, and here are their results.

First of all, the greeks, very strong do 2 major performances over 7'. the next day they will add a 6'30'' that will allow them to secure the first place of the competition.

A huge start for the kiwis, with an incredible 8'18'' static Dave Mullins sets-up the level.
The next day William Trubridge and Ant Williams, just have to do a safe static to take the first place.

But, the incredible happens ... William Trubridge does a hard 6'30'' but white card and Ant Williams pushes too much and do a severe Black-out at 7', definitely burrying the gold medals wishes for New Zealand. Too bad for them...

The Tchecks do a good set of static, and with an average over 6'30'' come back in the race for the podium.
The swede take good white cards with a good overall average.
The finnish guys with 3 performances over 7' do the best results of this event. Well done guys !

For the swiss team : Nicolas unfortunately makes a BO at 7', losing any chance of doing a good final result, And peter Weinmann does a limit, but white card, 5'08''.

For the Women :
The russian secure easily their static with 7' for Natalia Molchanova and 5'40'' for Natalia Avseenko, and Olga Suryakova 4'40''.

The US fighting for the 2nd place with Canada place a smart protest against an incredible performance from the Quebecian girl Julie Bisaillon ( 6'13'') and win taking the 2nd place of the event.

The swede stupidly miss their statics and end-up at the 8th place.
The Japanese girl keep on doing well and secure their second place

Our french girls do good performances : Solenn 4'39'', Julie 5'06''  and Francine 5'10''... No new french record, and good feelings for them. Not enough to go back in the race for the podium.

The swiss girls do good results. Claudia does a new swiss national record with a very nice 6'02''. Well done Claudia.
And Joanna does an easy/lazy 5'20''. Come on Joanna, you can do better !

Here are the finalized results after the 2 events :

Still the Dynamic with fins event to come :
The pool is 25m long, with a bad step of 1m. The turn will, thus, be of great importance in such a pool.

Water is 34°C warm, which is probably a bit too high for good performances, but all the nationale teams are ready to show what they can do...