September 29, 2007

Judge’s Committee Report

CAFA’s 7th season as Canada’s official sport governing body for freediving saw a slight increase in overall competitions hosted from the 2005-2006 season. A total of five competitions were held which is an average year. However these we’re all Western Regional Competitions and the CAFA/PFI Cayman Competition. This year eastern Canada held no competition and gave up the right to host the CAFA Nationals which were scheduled as being an eastern comp. This in spite of a strong club based out of Toronto.

Static apnea saw no change with Luc Gosselin still holding firm with his 7:22 second grip for the past two years and Mandy-Rae Cruickshank with 6:25 In dynamic apnea with fins William Winram posted an impressive 203m performance in Slovenia while without fins he achieved 150m. Jill Yoneda reset the women’s dynamic apnea record to 133m during the CAFA/PFI Cayman Competition this past April. Also during this event, Mandy-Rae Cruickshank posted a new women’s constant ballast world record and closed the gap on the men with an impressive 88m performance. One of CAFA’s longest standing national records and a former world record of Eric Fattah fell to Will Winram with an impressive 84m in constant ballast in December at the world championships in Egypt while in Dehab this past September he reset his own constant ballast without fins record to 74m. No-limits remains untouched with Mandy-Rae still holding 136m and variable ballast has had no successful attempts for either the men or women.

Some small issues in the past regarding procedures and protocols had risen for national record ratifications and this was due mainly to having a limited guide on the CAFA website for these procedures. This should be added to along with more specific outlines regarding Team Canada involvement and the commitments and responsibilities each member has should also be specifically defined. A new team selection process was tried during the world championships and although still creating competition for placement and allowing individual freedom, unfortunately saw a very poor success with team cohesion. The result however did have the Canadian Women’s team keep their top three standing and they have now become the most successful men’s or women’s team in history securing the third place at the Team World Championships in Egypt this past December behind Sweden and Russia.

So with a slight increase in Canadian competitions the competitive pace of athletic performances has increased and Canada is still maintaining its competitiveness and ranking as a top world competitor at both the team and individual level. Below is the ranking list of CAFA National and World Records.

Sincerely,

Kirk Krack
Judges’ Committee Chair

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