There aren’t too many extreme sports that are surrounded by so many arguments, debates and accusations as Freediving. Well, one also has to admit that competitive Freediving at the level of the world elite is really not a hobby sport where buddies come together to have fun and to delight themselves with their favorite sport. These guys and girls go down to depths that are considered life-threatening by doctors, who have not found any medical explanations for their achievements.

Nonetheless, this year there have already been ten world records broken in the eight record categories (more precisely sixteen, since men‘s and women‘s are registered separately) recognized by the biggest international federation, AIDA.

The poster of the Venezuelan record event Source: carloscoste.com

The judges overseeing the records have been busy traveling from Venezuela to Canada, from Mexico to Austria, flying zig-zag to make sure all attempts are executed properly. Nonetheless, glitches do occur, as it happened to Carlos Coste. Carlos, the team world champion of 2002 and two-fold world record holder invited his friend, the Danish Stig Severinsen, a world record holder himself, to Puerto la Cruz, to dive to new depths together, sharing the costs of world record attempts.

They picked two categories: Constant Weight - without fins, where they have to go down with their own power, guided by a rope. At the attempted depth there is a tag (seep poster on the left), which they have to bring up to the surface as a proof of their accomplishment. They are allowed to touch the rope only once.

In their other chosen category, in Free Immersion, they can grab the rope as many times as they want to. They are not allowed to use fins, they pull themselves down and up with the power of their arms.

The Costant Weight - without fins category was just recently added to the world record disciplines. The record was at -33 meters in the summer, at the beginning of September the Austrian Herbert Nitsch reached -50 m, Stig and Carlos wanted to get deeper than -60.

AIDA judges checking the underwater camera

On September 28th, 2003 Carlos reached -61 meters, and one and a half hours later Stig did likewise. Two AIDA judges, Marcello De Matteis and Perry Gladstone were present, overseeing the attempts, as the rules of AIDA require. As it is the case at all world record attempts, an underwater camera was descended also in Venezuela, and the judges watched the video made by this camera about the dives afterwards. They were also checking whether the divers where grabbing the rope more than once. The two judges okayed Carlos‘s attempt, and Carlos‘s and Stig‘s -61 meters appeared on the record page of AIDA with the note New WR - AIDA (Subject to anti-doping test results), indicating that they had to wait for the results of the doping tests. However, since doping is not a real problem amongst the freedivers, the doping test is almost always a mere formality. Therefore, Carlos and Stig very at least informally treated as the new world recorders of this discipline.

At least until November, when I visited AIDA‘s record page, and I saw a NOT VALID note next to Carlos‘s record. I did not really know what to make of it. However, since the internet is the main form of communication for the freedivers, I was sure if they put that note next to the attempt, then it is the official status of the record. The question was what had happened during that one month? Csaba Agh, the president of AIDA Hungary helped me to find out what happened. Csaba told me about the official communication between the President of AIDA International and Carlos‘s team.

The record page of AIDA - as of November 13, 2003

At AIDA International, the decisions concerning world records are made by Dieter Baumann, the official responsible for the records and Sébastien Nagel, the president of AIDA. The two of them watched the video made about Carlos‘s -61 meter dive, and they found that he was touching the rope more than once. They believed that the two judges present at the attempt made the wrong decision.

The opinion of Carlos‘s team is "when Carlos descended, a few meters before the plate he had a problem with an ear. He took a single hold once on the rope for balance, but he didn‘t grip the rope again, just touched the plate following the ascent. The judges verified the tapes and did not express any doubts to the organizer or the physician." It seems likely that Carlos had a problem with equalizing and he probably lost his balance for a second. Since, according to the rules, there is only one official tape documenting a record attempt, we are not in a position to judge when and where Carlos was touching the role.

Carlos‘s helpers argue that if the judges had expressed any doubts, he could and would have tried once again, considering that the event ended one week later. Organizing and funding a record attempts is a costly adventure, so their point of view is perfectly understandable. On the other hand, Carlos is upset because he was informed about the invalidity of his record from the same source we were, from the record page of AIDA. Most probably he was just surfing on the net, checking out which record to aim for next, when he saw the note next to his record. A month after the judges okeyed it.

Carlos‘s -101 m record Source: carloscoste.com

After the note was discovered, Jose Martin, the president of AIDA Venezuela and Gabriela Contreras, the organizer of Carlos‘s attempts wrote an email to the President of AIDA International. The argued that AIDA should send two expert judges to Venezuela for Carlos‘s next record, and the expenses of the judges should be completely absorbed by AIDA International, since it was AIDA‘s fault in the first place.

In his reply, Sébastien Nagel denied that request, saying that if they do not with that AIDA decision, they are allowed to request the decision of the AIDA Disciplinary Commission, (but all possible expenses would have to be paid by them in case of final decision is against them).

Consequently, Stig Severinsen found himself to be the sole world recorder in the discipline, Constant Weight - without fins. Carlos can be happy that he was not going only for one record. In Free Immersion, where he is allowed to touch the rope as many time he wants to, he did -101 meters. That is one meter deeper than Herbert Nitsch‘s world record of -100 meters in September. All Carlos has to do is that he should check the record page from time to time to make sure that no strange note appears next to that record of his.