Riga Freediving Cup 2010

Silver, Gold and personal records!

At Riga Freediving Cup 2010, 12.-14. February, we were over 30 participants (11 girls) from Estonia Ukraine, Germany, Russia, Latvia, Lithuania and Denmark.

I participated together with two clubmates from Copenhagen: Astrid and Cristina.

Competition

The competition was well organized. Accommodation at a sports complex with

swimming pool and restaurant was ideal for athletes who therefore also did

great results and many national and personal bests.

The first day was STA and DNF.

Newcommer Astrid Rosenvold made the 3rd longest dives in

static among the girls with a nice time: 5 minutes. The second

longest dive among the girls was made by her clubmate Cristina

Kuemmel, 5:04. My static dive was not very good due to bad preparation, but the result was so far my best in competition. And my DNF of 109m ws really nice and since this is a new disciplin for me - then I think there is more to come! After day one the team ranked nr. 2.

Day 2

Day 2 had only a single discipline on the program. Dynamic with fins (DYN).

Denmark is traditionally good at this discipline so we had some shoes to fill...

Beginner Astrid made a robust personal record with a dive to 104m, Cristina dived 120m. And I knew that I had the possibility of making a good result and that this could result in a very good position in the individual overall rank.

I had to do more than 153m (my training PB is 150m) to beat one of my competitors and swim at least 14m longer than the freediver that was going after me. A bit of a pressure, but I was ready for the challenge!

After a long, slow dive of nearly 3-minute time I came to the surface after a surprising 178m! This result placed me in front in of the competition and when the nearest competitor subsequently didnt deliver similar results... then I ended up winning the whole competition!

In team competition the Lithuanian team (all men) unforunately manage to keep the lead - and subsequently we: Astrid, Cristina and I ended up with team-silver. What a nice suprise! This is the first competition I have ever won - and the first medals for me in freediving. To get both silver and gold is more than I would ever hope for! I will post videos from the dynamic dives later...

The Danish results:

Astrid Rosenvold STA: 5:00, DNF 61m, DYN 104m

Cristina Kuemmel STA 5:04, DNF 80m, DYN 120m

Morten Villadsen STA 5:56, DNF 109m, DYN 178m