FREE will be called to verify the record, as has been the case with all of Yasemin’s records, but not AIDA. Most likely, CMAS will send observers to the event, but will not attend it officially. CMAS has been considering the inclusion of the Variable Ballast category as one of their events, and we had been in contact with members of their board discussing their proposed set of rules, but the commission itself could not agree on the rules, so the category remains as of now, still unofficial. But they might come to observe and get a better idea for what factors must be considered in this category. We have decided not to invite AIDA because the phylosophical differences that existed between them and us 10 years ago, are still there 10 years later, so it would be hypocritical and wrong of us to call AIDA when we don’t believe in them.

This does not mean that we don’t respect the many talented and had working officials that work for AIDA or the outstanding athletes that do records under their auspices. This is why, personally, we are accepting Tanya Streeter’s record as our goal and that’s what we’re aiming for, even if the FREE record is much shallower. I will talk more about this later, but for those who are not interested in politics, this is basically the easy version.

Ah, and before I forget, I’ve heard comments that FREE “doesn’t exist” anymore :-) Believe me, FREE is pretty much alive and we are not “reviving” it just for this record. As the name inplies, FREE stands for Freediving Regulations and Education Entity, so we do record verification and freediving courses. Now, the last record we were called to verify was in 2004, but we never stopped teaching students around the world. In fact, of the 1342 students we have verified since the creation of FREE in 1998, 480 of those have been certified after 2004, when we verified the last record. We have many active instructors in several countries, all of whom have not only official but also personal contact information for me and other FREE officials, so whenever they need to contact me, if they really want to, they can do it very, very easily.

Safe dives,

Rudi Castineyra

Best fishes, Yasemin and Rudi!
Ivan
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Love, Courage and Water,

Kars