2005 Winter Apnea Games
Posted By Panos Lianos on 9 May 2005
The competition started with Static Apnea. Athletes could participate in all three pool disciplines so the need to make it as fast as possible led us to have four competition zones for static and two for the dynamics. Everything ran according to plan and there were no delays. George Georgas made a nice 6:32 and took first place, I managed 6:31 and Manolis Giangos returning after 2 years of absence due to his military service got third place with 6:23. Peter Pedersen did 6:18 and Kostas Kyriakou pulled a nice 6:05 and set a new national record for Cyprus. For the women, Natassa Frangouli surfaced at 4:53, Vicky Sambani did 4:39 and Panagiota Balanou, the national record holder surfaced early at 3:41. She told me she wasn’t in the mood to push. I was really surprised as usually she is very determined and always does her best.
After a break (where most athletes appreciated the offer from Power Bar), dynamic apnea started. George Georgas had announced 1m (once again)! Stavros Kostakos was in an equally humorous mood with a 2m announcement! They finished their attempts with 123m and 141m respectively. Every body was waiting to see what Manolis Giangos would do, since once had the national record with 150m before he disappeared from the scene. He pulled a 164m Dynamic, breaking the previous 152 national record by George Georgas, but he didn’t set a record! You see, Aggelos Grivas who was going in the opposite zone, started 3 minutes before Manolis but hadn’t finished when Manolis started. He surprised us all with a fantastic 171m performance, taking the lead so far and breaking the existing national record by 19m!! Impressive. I was next with a 140m announcement. I was busy trying to make sure everything was set up properly for Peter’s WR attempt, who was going three minutes after me in the opposite zone. Suddenly I heard Katerina Boltsi (the girl announcing the top times) telling me that I had 1:30 to start!! What the hell??? My fins were not there and George Georgas ran to my assistance. I started putting on my fins less than a minute before I was to start and I entered the water just before “10 seconds” was announced. I didn’t have time to relax, nor to pack to the usual amount that I do. So I started with a “let’s see how it goes” attitude. I surfaced after 144m. Hmm, not good but at least I didn’t get a penalty. Right after the white cards from the judges I threw my fins on the side of the pool and ran to the other side to assist Peter. I was supposed to be his “coach” in order to vocally assist him with his surfacing. He managed a fantastic 190m dynamic apnea, I said “breathe! breathe! breathe!”, (but it was obvious that it wasn’t necessary), he did everything right, he got 2 white cards and the crowd started cheering and yelling “Bravo”!!! What a performance and what a moment! The girls did some very good performances too. Vicky Sambani did 108m, failing to break her own 123m national record, but still a great performance. Panagiota Balanou surprised us again by doing a personal best during a competition with 104m, Vaso Kaliva in her first ever competition and after only a couple of weeks of training did 95m and Natassa Frangouli stopped at 93m. We should also mention George Karakatsanis who did 109m in his first competition. In total we had 13 people doing 100m or more. Well done!
- Bookmark with :
- what are these?
