It's Time: Showdown at Nice
Posted By Paul Kotik on 29 August 2005
And then, there was Nice.
The First AIDA Individual Pool World Freediving Championship has folded its tents in Renens-Lausanne and a swelling host of athletes, trainers, media, supporters and camp followers now converges on the French Riviera for the climactic finale to the annual season of triumph and trial. In the beginning there were but few, yet now the thunder of hooves and the sounding of trumpets and drums draws near, and ancient Nice quivers at the feet of AIDA’s phalanxes.
It is time.
Which is not to say the Renens was anything less than fantastic, another notch in the belt of the resilient AIDA team which has played so very central a role in the renaissance of our gentle sport. Records were set, the winning performances were impressive and there were even a few surprising plot twists.
In the Static Apnea event, for example, top contender Tom Sietas cost me a pretty penny in the office betting when he rallied after a packing blackout and still, somehow, managed to deliver a 6:13. Now, I was pretty sure Tom was going to win that event and so I must say that on balance I’m relieved I wasn’t there to see this heartbreaker. My blackout, I fear, would have been even more dramatic than his. A Deeper Blue salute to Mr. Sam Still of Great Britain, our victor and prince with a workmanlike 8:19.
Workmanlike ? It staggers one to recall that only a few short years ago, a static apnea time of 8:19 was a fantasy, a thing whispered only by slap-happy divers in the early morning hours, and only after very free immersions in adult beverages and cold baths.
And Tanya. Tanya Streeter, who defies all reason, all sense of proportion, with her anomalous status as a genuine Old Timer in our league. How in the world does the suave and debonaire Ms. Streeter fall short of qualifying for the DNF (Dynamic No Fins) final, only to casually and shortly thereafter surpass the then-extant world record (and set a US national record) in a starter dive ? How does she do 81m in her heat, cede her place in the final go-round, and then ( like a stage magician pulling a rabbit – no, a Russian wolfhound out of her hat) confound and delight with a 113m tour of the same pool’s icy chlorine consommé ? That is an enormous, and inexplicable difference ! And just when we had begun to suppose we understood the physiology of this thing. Perhaps Marie Antoinette was correct: perhaps it is all in the head.
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