rlin Championships in Germany and asked if I would be a judge for it. Martin and I met in 2006 at the World Championships in Hurghada, and we both did our Judges course in Maribor, Slovenia at the 2007 World Championships. He's one of the nicer chaps in freediving and has some grand schemes to put German freediving back into the front of the pack, as they were a few years ago.I've done a little judging since the July 07 course - I had judged Liv Philip's Dynamic No-Fins Women's British record of 104m as well as recently Alan Barber's 127m Dynamic No-Fins Men's British record (I guess there's a resurgence of no-fins in Britain?). But essentially i've had little reason to pull out the rules since July last year, except for the occasional argument on DeeperBlue.net so I was keen to get some judging experience before heading back to Australia to do some judging back home. So quite rightly I was shitting myself at various points in the fortnight leading up to the competition day.
We arrived late on a Friday night and were supposed to meet up with Martin and few others for a late beer however we didn't realise that our hotel shut it's doors at midnight and we didn't get there until 12:15am. We called the emergency phone number and waited as it started to rain, then hail, then finally the guy came and let us in. By the time we made it to the bar (only across the road) the guys were completely knackered so we said hello, did a round of hugs then they all trotted off to bed while Pen and I had a beer and then had an amusing adventure trying to find, and order, a german kebab for dinner, then trotting off to bed a bit after 3am.
Saturday morning we got up and had brekky. Our hotel was across the road from Martin's apartment; by a strange co-incidence, Martin's apartment and Anna von Boetticher's apartment were on the same street (Anna is another german freedive friend that lives in London and Berlin - funny how freedivers seem to find each other!) , so after brekky we wandered down the road to Anna von Boetticher's house to see the guys. There were a bunch of people staying with Anna - from the UK there was Tim Money and Sara Campbell, and from the south in Konstanz was Richard Wonka, who originally came up to observe and help out but caught the bug and was co-erced into signing up not long after he arrived. All of them are good mates and it was funny seeing them together in a flat in Berlin. After a while it was fairly apparent that a couple of people were suffering from nerves as it was either their first pool comp or close to their first one. We chatted for a bit then left to catch up with Martin and Elisabeth Kristoffersen, who I was catching public transport to the pool with. Pen went off to do some sightseeing and Martin, Elisabeth and I jumped on the train.
After we arrived I started having feelings of how weird it was being there as a judge, when numerous old friends came up and said hello and were shocked when I said I was judging, not competing (my name was not published anywhere as judge). Up to that point I knew exactly nothing of what I had to do or who the other judges were. After a bit I found out who the judges were which was a pleasant surprise. Two of them, Katja Kedenburg and Hans Pütz had judged me in my very first competition in Greene, Germany in January 2006. To be judging next to them 2 years later seemed to be a cool full circle kind of thing.
I spent a bit of time catching up with old mates, struggling to remember a couple of names initially but it all came together after a minute or three. Heard some disturbing yet funny sto
ries too - Denmark's Henning Larsen had been shot in the eye in a hunting accident. The bullet had lodged in the corner of his eye (not the eyeball) and surgeons could not remove it. To prove this point he pulled a small magnet out of his wallet and stuck it to his eye, quite freaky yet fascinating. He was not sure what would happen with his depth diving as air could leak out of his eye socket now, which, if you think about it is probably a blessing for depth because you don't have to equalise your mask.
ries too - Denmark's Henning Larsen had been shot in the eye in a hunting accident. The bullet had lodged in the corner of his eye (not the eyeball) and surgeons could not remove it. To prove this point he pulled a small magnet out of his wallet and stuck it to his eye, quite freaky yet fascinating. He was not sure what would happen with his depth diving as air could leak out of his eye socket now, which, if you think about it is probably a blessing for depth because you don't have to equalise your mask.Plenty of old mates from past comps were running around, many I met at the 2007 World Championships in Maribor. It was awesome catching up with them all but after a while I figured out there were a ton of things I needed to do before the actual comp started.
The judges communed to one side and we had a little briefing with the 
organiser to get some of the basics out of the way, then the athletes ran off to get changed and start their preparations while we did some more briefing and started to discuss a few issues around the rules. Afterwards we gathered all the athletes together for a brief in German, then it was thrown over to me to do an incredibly brief brief, given I had no idea what the first guy had said and hadn't known I had to say anything at all up until that point.
organiser to get some of the basics out of the way, then the athletes ran off to get changed and start their preparations while we did some more briefing and started to discuss a few issues around the rules. Afterwards we gathered all the athletes together for a brief in German, then it was thrown over to me to do an incredibly brief brief, given I had no idea what the first guy had said and hadn't known I had to say anything at all up until that point.Not long after was the first official top for Static, and the 45 minutes warm up beforehand was spent by the judges picking their zones, looking for stopwatches, cards, food, water (all the essential bits). A few things went missing in the preparations: a couple of minutes before OT Katja still didn't have a camera in her zone and I didn't have a timekeeper. But we were sorted out with plenty of seconds to spare.
The first person I judged was Denmark's Sanne Rasmussen, who surfaced at 4:36 and 
whilst clean, she wasn't happy at all and was swearing at herself and looking very disappointed. She looked that angry that I actually thought for a second that maybe she had disqualified herself and I had missed it, but I put my doubts away and awarded a white card as I saw nothing wrong. It turned out she was expecting somewhere around 5 minutes but didn't have the will to fight, something i'm all too familiar with.
whilst clean, she wasn't happy at all and was swearing at herself and looking very disappointed. She looked that angry that I actually thought for a second that maybe she had disqualified herself and I had missed it, but I put my doubts away and awarded a white card as I saw nothing wrong. It turned out she was expecting somewhere around 5 minutes but didn't have the will to fight, something i'm all too familiar with.So first person done, the nerves started calming down and I got into the rhythm for a bit. Then along came a German woman with her husband safetying. She performed around 3:50 I think, came up and was clean, and started into her surface protocol by taking her mask off, said "i'm ok" then gave the ok sign, which is in the wrong order (must be mask/facial equipment, ok sign, then "i'm ok"). I thought to myself "oh crap... that's a red card" and waited for the 30 seconds to expire, then told her I was very sorry but she did the SP in the wrong order and I had to give her a red card. She got a bit confused, then angry, then her husband got angry and they were both trying to tell me it was in the correct order. I repeated that it was in the wrong order and it was quite clear but they wouldn't believe me. It took both the safety diver and the timekeeper to confirm to her the result before she would get out of the pool. She certainly put the doubt in my mind as to whether she did it correctly or not, but I stuck to my guns, and after all, I had a clear view and I wasn't hypoxic at the time so I guess I should have seen it better than her!
Not long afterwards Sara Campbell came into my zone. Sara is the current Women's World Champion Constant Weight diver and has 3 depth world records, not bad for a c
hick that's 4 foot 11 inches! There had been a lot of media surrounding Sara and she had announced that she would be attempting to break both the static and dynamic British national records. Knowing that she had almost zero experience in the pool, I was a bit worried, as experience told me that athletes who excel in the ocean often bomb out in the pool the first time, as they have the "go hard" attitude of a competitor at the top of their game, but no experience in disciplines that are very different. This was also highlighted by info on DeeperBlue in an article about Sara saying that many people compared deep results to pool potential - a four minute dive can be doubled to give an eight minute static. This info, in my eyes is very misleading for many different reasons, so I was a bit worried that Sara was just going to go for broke and have some sort of spectacular blackout. In the end my worries were completely waylaid when she performed a lovely clean 4:34 with a perfect SP. Regardless of all the hype up in the press leading up to the comp, she was quite realistic in her expectations which was good to see.
hick that's 4 foot 11 inches! There had been a lot of media surrounding Sara and she had announced that she would be attempting to break both the static and dynamic British national records. Knowing that she had almost zero experience in the pool, I was a bit worried, as experience told me that athletes who excel in the ocean often bomb out in the pool the first time, as they have the "go hard" attitude of a competitor at the top of their game, but no experience in disciplines that are very different. This was also highlighted by info on DeeperBlue in an article about Sara saying that many people compared deep results to pool potential - a four minute dive can be doubled to give an eight minute static. This info, in my eyes is very misleading for many different reasons, so I was a bit worried that Sara was just going to go for broke and have some sort of spectacular blackout. In the end my worries were completely waylaid when she performed a lovely clean 4:34 with a perfect SP. Regardless of all the hype up in the press leading up to the comp, she was quite realistic in her expectations which was good to see.As the Announcements increased gradually the performances started 
getting over 5 minutes and eventually the last person in my group came along, Denmark's world record holder Stig Severinsen. Stig's a bit of a colossal man and in every comp i've attended he has always had something to say about the rules, and I think he really does like to test the rules a bit. With that in mind I was sure he was going to really test me on some point or another, and seeing that it was Stig and it was almost the last static there was a reasonable crowd watching. Once again luck was on my side and he did a flawless 7 and a half minutes, but grumbled a bit that he wasn't sure whether to push to 8 or not. Wish I had those sorts of dilemas....
getting over 5 minutes and eventually the last person in my group came along, Denmark's world record holder Stig Severinsen. Stig's a bit of a colossal man and in every comp i've attended he has always had something to say about the rules, and I think he really does like to test the rules a bit. With that in mind I was sure he was going to really test me on some point or another, and seeing that it was Stig and it was almost the last static there was a reasonable crowd watching. Once again luck was on my side and he did a flawless 7 and a half minutes, but grumbled a bit that he wasn't sure whether to push to 8 or not. Wish I had those sorts of dilemas....With Static now over a huge weight was lifted and it felt like I was getting into the rhythm. We had a break where we scoffed down copious bananas and apples (hadn't eaten since breakfast and it was 8pm so I was a bit delirous with hunger!) and got our sheets for the next event of Dynamic. Since there was only 2 lanes for dynamic we were judging in pairs.
Hans and I worked quite well together, he is an experienced judge and (hopefully) I picked up a lot from him. A few athletes in, the girl I had DQ'ed in static was breathing up in our lane. I wasn't sure if she hated me at that point but she definitely wasn't smiling at me. She took her last breath and took off. Her PB was somewhere around the 70m mark Hans told me, and when she got to around 70m she started looking up ahead then speeding up, two classic signals that someone is pushing hard and could well black out. She got to 100m and came up, as I was close I was right in front of her, she stared at me while she took a couple of big breaths, took her mask off, gave an incredibly large and obvious ok sign and yelled out "I AM OK", to which everyone standing around started laughing, myself included. We gave her the white card and I was relieved that I didn't have to DQ someone twice in the same comp.
Not long after we had a Belgian guy called Dirk who was an interesting character, after he took off Hans mentioned that he was colourblind. He eventually came up, did his protocol and stared kind of blankly at us for a while. Hans and I waited the 30 seconds and both gave him a white card, to which he did not react a bit and kept staring in at us for a few more seconds, until Hans and I both yelled at the same time "WHITE CARD!!!", and he smiled and hopped out of the water. I had to use every ounce of strength not to completely piss myself laughing.
Eventually we got to the big boys again, the Danes Stig and Henning. Sti
g did an incredibly impressive (to us mortals anyway) 203m but came up in his usual manner looking clean as a whistle and chatting away to anyone around, like he'd only swum a couple of metres. Henning came up at 200m and wasn't as chirpy as Stig but was pretty clean nonetheless.
g did an incredibly impressive (to us mortals anyway) 203m but came up in his usual manner looking clean as a whistle and chatting away to anyone around, like he'd only swum a couple of metres. Henning came up at 200m and wasn't as chirpy as Stig but was pretty clean nonetheless.And that was that, with the comp over we all packed up and headed to t
he clubhouse for some food (my stomach was eating itself by that stage) and some well earned beer. The guys at the clubhouse put on a huge meal for us all and we sat around talking, laughing and carrying on all night. There was a protest earlier in the night that took some time to deal with, it was a bit unfortunate as it was a protest from someone who didn't even compete in dynamic, protesting a white card that was given to Martin Legat. Martin had grabbed for the edge as he came up and the person that protested said that he had done the same a year earlier and had received a penalty. In essence he was protesting to highlight the fact that the particular rule is not objective and is not well understood by many freedivers. In the end we watched the video m
any times and had an anonymous vote of which the result was to uphold the current result.
After that, straight back to the beer! We had a presentation and after what seemed about 10 minutes, it was nearly 3am and Martin had ordered a taxi for he and Elisabeth. We jumped in with them, got home then met team England/Germany (Anna, Richard, & Tim) for a quick cocktail before bed. Not before finding a currywurst fi
rst though ;-)
The next day we trundled across the road for a wonderful brunch with Martin and Elisabeth, after which we realised we were very late for Elisabeth's train back to Aarhus. After missing it at the first station, we jumped the city train and managed to get it at the last second at it's next stop. It was way too close for comfort and poor Lizzy wasn't too impressed with us I think!
Martin gave us a wonderful tour around Berlin, including a stop at a hotel with a huge aquarium surrounding the elevator in the lobby - so cool
! He also took us on trip to show us some grand plans of his - not sure how much of it i'm allowed to say so i'll shut up now.
Conclusion: Great competition, stressy but cool, brilliant city, fantastic people and mates. Couldn't ask for a better weekend really!
Big thank you to Eva and Igor for the use of their photos - ta!
he clubhouse for some food (my stomach was eating itself by that stage) and some well earned beer. The guys at the clubhouse put on a huge meal for us all and we sat around talking, laughing and carrying on all night. There was a protest earlier in the night that took some time to deal with, it was a bit unfortunate as it was a protest from someone who didn't even compete in dynamic, protesting a white card that was given to Martin Legat. Martin had grabbed for the edge as he came up and the person that protested said that he had done the same a year earlier and had received a penalty. In essence he was protesting to highlight the fact that the particular rule is not objective and is not well understood by many freedivers. In the end we watched the video m
any times and had an anonymous vote of which the result was to uphold the current result.After that, straight back to the beer! We had a presentation and after what seemed about 10 minutes, it was nearly 3am and Martin had ordered a taxi for he and Elisabeth. We jumped in with them, got home then met team England/Germany (Anna, Richard, & Tim) for a quick cocktail before bed. Not before finding a currywurst fi
rst though ;-)The next day we trundled across the road for a wonderful brunch with Martin and Elisabeth, after which we realised we were very late for Elisabeth's train back to Aarhus. After missing it at the first station, we jumped the city train and managed to get it at the last second at it's next stop. It was way too close for comfort and poor Lizzy wasn't too impressed with us I think!
Martin gave us a wonderful tour around Berlin, including a stop at a hotel with a huge aquarium surrounding the elevator in the lobby - so cool
! He also took us on trip to show us some grand plans of his - not sure how much of it i'm allowed to say so i'll shut up now.Conclusion: Great competition, stressy but cool, brilliant city, fantastic people and mates. Couldn't ask for a better weekend really!
Big thank you to Eva and Igor for the use of their photos - ta!
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