Customer support management services consist of responding to requests coming from the AIDA community or from outside and include internal collaboration with the board and the committees.

The wild cards for both the AIDA Pool World Championship Jeju 2023 and AIDA Depth World Championship Limassol 2023 have been released.

Between December 2022 and March 2023, AIDA welcomed four new AIDA Observers to the Assembly, bringing the total number of observer members up to 12, in addition to the 39 AIDA National members. 

Congratulations to Alexey Molchanov for breaking the AIDA men`s Variable Weight (VWT) World Record and to Alessia Zecchini for breaking the AIDA women`s Constant Weight Bifin (CWTB) World Record in March. 

In March, AIDA President Alexandru Russu visited Taiwan to meet with members of AIDA Taiwan, the local government and AIDA supporters.

AIDA was represented by Treasurer Sasa Jeremic and safety committee member Savvas Savva at boot Düsseldorf last week. 

Are you ready for the biggest pool event of the year?

Registration is now open for the 30th AIDA WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP in Jeju, South Korea and will include DYN, DYNB, DNF and STA disciplines. 

AIDA France and AIDA International had a very busy weekend at the French diving show Salon De La Plongee from 6-9 January 2023 in Paris.

As of November 2022, AIDA is proud to announce that all doping test results from the AIDA World Championship Roatan 2022 are negative and once again congratulates all medalists and Marianna Gillespie for setting the AIDA World Record in CWTB with a 97m dive.

How long have you been freediving? 

I`ve been freediving since childhood. I was always excited to reach shells or stones from the bottom that other kids couldn’t. Then came The Big Blue, but I was still not aware that freediving existed as a sport. And then 10 years ago, an accidental conversation at the swimming pool brought me to my first freediving course. At that time, I could not imagine the wide range of new opportunities and discoveries that would open in front of me.

AIDA is pleased to announce the World Championship plans for 2023! 

AIDA 2023-2024 mandate in Executive Officer positions. 

After eight days of events, the AIDA Depth World Championship Roatan 2022 has come to a successful close.

Throughout the competition, the weather remained sunny and clear, allowing the athletes to compete at their best in optimum conditions.  

How long have you been freediving?

I’ve been freediving since 2000 when I was 15 years old.

During school summer break, I worked as an assistant lifeguard, and before I received my first paycheck, I bought my first mask, snorkel, and fins with my first tip.

Every day during lunch break, I’d dive and collect seafood to bring to my grandmother to cook.

ATMOS, a company specialising in wearable technology and software design based in Chinese Taipei, Taiwan, joins the 29^th AIDA World Championship as a main partner and will showcase their innovative MISSION2 dive computer watches at the event.

Throughout the event, these watches and the integrated computer will be used to monitor the official depth and times of each competitor’s dive. 

Next week, the International Association for the Development of Apnea (AIDA) is hosting its 29^th AIDA World Championship in the association’s 30-year history. The competition will welcome freedivers from around the world to Roatan, Honduras from 15-25 August.  

How long have you been freediving?
I did my beginners course almost 12 years ago, but it was only in 2015 when I tried deep diving.

Why and how did you start freediving? 
I started with an AIDA course out of curiosity, and then never stopped. 

What is your favorite thing about freediving?
Freediving gives you the opportunity to grow on so many levels. It`s not about going deeper, but becoming a better diver.

Why do you love being part of AIDA? 
Through ADIA I had my first contact with freediving. I really appreciate how much freediving has advanced because AIDA members were exploring the sport and making knowledge about freediving widely available.

I am looking forward to the AIDA Depth World Championship Roatan 2022 because I have very good memories from the AIDA Depth World Championship Roatan 2017.

AIDA is looking for editors to be involved in a number of ongoing translation projects.

Congratulations to Magdalena Solich-Talanda, Mateusz Malina and Julia Kozerska for breaking AIDA World Records at the AIDA Polish Freediving Pool Championships Dębica, Poland.

AIDA is pleased to announce its continued partnership with Double K, a South Korean freediving equipment manufacturer, for both the AIDA Pool World Championship Burgas 2022 and the AIDA Depth World Championship Roatan 2022.

Over 130 athletes, including world record holders, are competing in the 28^th AIDA World Championship in Burgas, Bulgaria from 18-25 June 2022.

The competition will be held at the "Park Arena OZK" pool in the seaside town, where freedivers are competing to see who can swim underwater as long as possible on a single breath. 

How long have you been Freediving? 

I was brought up on a boat. I was brought onto the boat when I was only a year and a half, so I learned how to swim very soon after I learned to walk. My earliest memories from childhood were spending most of the day in the water, in the Caribbean, then the Pacific Ocean as we lived on the boat and traveled from island to island. 

In advance of the upcoming AIDA Pool World Championship Burgas 2022, set to take place from 18-25 June 2022, Chinese wetsuit brand BESTDIVE is planning to offer streaming to freedivers in China. 

I have been freediving since 1990. I am from the Big Blue Generation and was already a scuba diver in university. I have found freediving to be much more fun than scuba. 

Collaborator applications are now open for the AIDA Pool and Depth World Championships 2023. Send an email to board@aidainternational.org before 15 June 2022, with information about the local infrastructure and associated budget. 

Mission/Purpose:

As the Education Content Manager, your role is to complete AIDA Education content projects and manage the organization of education materials on both the AIDA server and website.

How long have you been freediving? 

I used to freedive for fun as a child. With my family, we used to have competitions in our pool at home. I also spent whole days at sea because I loved collecting shells. 

I watched the movie Imensidão Azul (The Big Blue), I discovered a deep passion for the sport and looked for something in my country, but there was nothing, so I took scuba diving courses and went snorkeling with underwater fishermen. 

BESTDIVE is now offering 10% off for all AIDA Members on orders of the S.C.S Showchi and Zero Resistance suits with code 2022032023.
Discount applies until the end of 2022.

AIDA joins the International Olympic Committee (IOC) in condemning the actions taken by the governments in Russia and Belarus against Ukraine, and in response to these recent events, AIDA is extending its support to impacted instructors, athletes, and judges from Ukraine.

"The safety and well-being of our fellow freedivers are of great importance to AIDA. Our thoughts go out to the people of Ukraine, and we hope for a swift end to this conflict."

Following an appeal to the AIDA DIsciplinary Committee decision, on 10 February, the AIDA Board finalized the decision to suspend the instructor status of Mr. Y for two years starting from 15 January 2022.

This decision follows the sentence issued by Korean courts for charges of sexual harassment against a student.

I have been freediving since December 2014 when I took AIDA 1 and 2 at Vertical Blue in the Bahamas. I started freediving because I was looking to find mindfulness. I also recognized the value of the “brain factor” in freediving, which sparked my interest due to my neuroscience background. 

Following the dramatic impact of Typhoon Rai on the Philippines in December, the AIDA Board decided to help support its local instructors in rebuilding their business by granting free renewal fees for 2022 and free certification fees for the first quarter of the year (January to March).

Impacted instructors are invited to apply for this support by contacting support@aidainternational.org with their name, location in the Philippines, years of operation, and planned courses for the first quarter of 2022. 

The AIDA Medical & Science Committee is pleased to announce the planning of a new scientific study about the potential impact of premature birth on breath-holding capabilities.

As of 8 February 2022, AIDA is accepting applications from potential collaborators interested in assisting with the organization and hosting of the AIDA Depth World Championship 2022. All interested individuals are invited to contact the AIDA Board at board@aidainternational.org by 23 February 2022 to announce their intention.  

Freelance Executive Assistant

Responsibilities (non-exhaustive):

Monitor communication (emails and MS Teams) to:

• Filter and reply to the Executive’s mails
• Manage diary
• Follow-up and report progress on pending issues/action items
• Register all the Executive Board’s decisions
• Share the relevant info with collaborators
• Help prepare and coordinate meetings, send reminders and meeting minutes

-Help prepare and ensure statutory tasks are executed on time (yearly budget vote on Dec 1st, yearly Board elections on October 1st and yearly Disciplinary Committee vote).

-Centralize and organize the long-term info/docs on the server

-Create playbooks and drive team playbook adoption

Freediving athletes Olga Davydova (RUS), Goran Colak (CRO), and David Čustić (HRV) have tested positive for prohibited substances. 

Start your New Year off right with a new order of wetsuits by AIDA partner, BESTDIVE!

BESTDIVE has more than 20 years of experience in advancing wetsuit craftsmanship and large-scale production. 

Freediving entered my world in 2012, and I was fascinated by this sport. Not long after, I quit my job at a Fortune 500 company and began my exploration and adventure of freediving in many Asian Pacific countries such as Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, and the Philippines. In 2013, I became the first-ever AIDA instructor in China and offered AIDA lessons in Chinese for the first time domestically.

The online 2022 Freediving Summit will gather 29 of the world’s top freedivers to share what makes them great and the best ways to improve time underwater.

AIDA Treasurer Sasa Jeremic will be participating on Day 3 of the event to discuss all things AIDA.

What: Freediving Summit 2022
Date: 1-3 February 2022
Time: 8am EST 

Starting with December 22, online exams and online course completion forms will be added to the AIDA Education Online System (EOS)

How did you get introduced to freediving?

I first started freediving in 2017. Before that I had been a college lecturer for over four years. Life had seemed stable and predictable until I saw a YouTube video featuring a couple sailing around the world and spearfishing. After that, my husband, Joe, and I decided to learn how to freedive and we loved it so much that we both quit our jobs and moved to Cebu, Philippines to embark on our new careers as freediving instructors.

The 28th AIDA World Championship will take place in Burgas, Bulgaria, and will include DYN, DYNB, DNF, and STA. 

Pending the evolution of the COVID-19 pandemic, the scheduled dates are 19-27 June 2022. 

The 2^nd International Medical & Science Conference – also referred to as the Freediving Forum 2021 (FDF21) – took place from 3 to 5 December in Tarusa, Russia, under the auspices of AIDA. 

Sophie is a young ocean enthusiast, videographer and AIDA Instructor. From a very young age, she has spent most of her time exploring and freediving around the pristine coasts of the Seychelles Islands. Her favourite thing about freediving is connecting with marine animals. She also believes that one of the reasons why she freedives is because "it is the only time where I feel like time is non-existent."

1.1.  AIDA Japan question about restarts: why only some athletes were allowed to restart at the World Championship (ant not all)? 

During the recent AIDA Depth World Championship Limassol 2021, the AIDA Medical & Science Committee provided medical assistance for all the participating athletes and crewmembers. 

The medical team consisted of: 

• Dr. Oleg Melikhov – Medical and Science Officer 
• Jeroen Van Haudt – Medical COS
• George Evripidou – Paramedic
• Sam Van Cauter – Paramedic 

At the end of September, the AIDA Assembly opened the vote for three executive officer positions for the 2022-2024 mandate.  
As of 2 October 2021, the following positions have been voted on and approved. Their term will begin on 1 January 2022:

• AIDA President: Alexandru Russu 
• AIDA Technical Officer: Paul Sutton 
• AIDA Education Officer: Claude Chapuis  

I am very happy that my long-time wish to dive to 100 meters has come true. I don’t want to get complacent, so I will keep researching and improving to make it more comfortable and safer. 

AIDA has signed an agreement with Vertical Blue for the use of their Professional Safety Freediving program with the goal of collaborating to create a unique standard for freediving safety management in competitions and to generate three new safety courses for AIDA freedivers.    

Paralenz, a Danish start-up specialized in technical solutions for underwater activities, equipped AIDA with eight Vaquita cameras for the AIDA Depth World Championship Limassol 2021.

These cameras were used to monitor the bottom plates to verify all the athletes dives at the end of each event. 

After ten days of events, the AIDA Depth World Championship Limassol 2021 came to a close.

Throughout the competition, the weather remained sunny and clear, and only two days of events had to be called off early due to the strong underwater current. Thankfully, by moving the postponed dives to the remaining days and using the planned back-up day on 30 September, all athletes were able to compete.

We would like to apologize for the incident with the flag of Taiwan during the streaming of the AIDA World Championship.

I started freediving at the end of 1997 when I developed a chronic knee injury from long-distance running. After years of experimenting with the sport, I decided to learn more about it. I trained with Loic Leferme and his team, Umberto Pelizzari, Aharon and MT Solomon, Pierre Frolla, and more. I became an AIDA Instructor in 2001 and an AIDA judge in 2003.

The AIDA Depth World Championship Limassol 2021 is always one of the most anticipated freediving competitions of the year and 2021 is no different.

This year, the International Association for the Development of Apnea (AIDA) has partnered with Paralenz, a Danish start-up specialized in technological solutions for underwater activities, and will showcase eight of their innovative Vaquita cameras at the competition.

AIDA is pleased to announce our partnership with Double K, a South Korean freediving equipment manufacturer, for the AIDA Depth World Championship Limassol 2021.

Two years after the last AIDA World Championship in Villefranche-sur-mer, AIDA is ready to welcome the top freediving athletes to our 27^th World Championship in Limassol, Cyprus from 20-30 September.

BESTDIVE, a diving wetsuit manufacturing company based in China, joins the AIDA Depth World Championship Limassol 2021 as a sponsor.

Following the AIDA statutes the Executive Officers shall be elected no later than 1 October, so we will have a period of 2 weeks for receiving applications followed by a vote ending the 1st of October.

Meeting agenda:

1) What can be done to bring more countries to the World Championship?

2) AIDA freediving centers

3) World Championship

4) Facilitation of IT expenses

5) Items demanding Assembly votes

6) Recognition of AIDA certifications

7) Reactivation of AIDA Chile

8) The date of the next meeting

9) Recognition of AIDA certifications

Meet Konstantin Borisov, a certified AIDA instructor and professional cosmonaut!  

AIDA is now looking to select a safety team of 16 people for the 2021 Depth World Championship that will take place in Limassol (CY) on 20-30 September 2021

Please apply with your ``Safety CV`` (name & date of comps. where you`ve been safety and any other info you consider relevant)  by e-mail to: safety@aidainternational.org until the 31st of July 2021

Following an Assembly decission, the wild cards for this year have be exceptionally calculated taking in consideration not only the previous year, but also 2019 (due to the small number of competition during the COVID19 restrictions)

The International Association for the Development of Apnea is pleased to announce its inaugural Jury Control Committee.

The AIDA Board carefully considered each applicant for the available positions and officially approved the following committee members on 24 May 2021:

• Olga Sidorova (Russia) – AI, Judge Responsible
• Radoslaw Gaca (Poland) – AI
• Ekaterina Romanova (Russia) – AI
• Anne-Louise Fortin (Canada) – C

Coral reefs are one of the most interesting ecosystems that we can explore while freediving, with thousands of colourful fishes and an incredible diversity of marine life. But did you know that they play an important role in protecting shorelines from erosion and stabilizing the climate?

AIDA instructor and marine scientist Giovanni d’Erasmo dedicated over 10 years to studying coral reefs and humans’ negative impact on their survival.

For World Ocean Day, Giovanni shares the best ways that both freedivers and the public can help protect coral reefs.

      Rules changes

- The Assembly received proposed updates to the Competition Rules and Instructor standards by mail. A vote will be sent out offering the possibility to accept or reject each change individually.

- The principle of “certification for life” that was discussed during the previous Assembly Meeting is now taking shape with the removal of all requirements to re-take an AIDA course that was already taken. The AIDA Judges and Instructors will maintain their active status based on short online tests that are meant to refresh their knowledge after long periods of inactivity or after updates in the AIDA programs. On top of the theory check, the instructors will be also required for a proof they are still fit to dive, but there will be no more requirement to re-take a full course if the Assembly will approve the “certification for life” project.

World Ocean Day is 8 June! No matter if we live on the coast or far inland, we all need a healthy ocean to survive and thrive. By protecting our ocean, we also protect our climate, and our future.

This year, AIDA has been invited to join The Ocean Project and the World Ocean Day Youth Advisory Council to help unite the world in taking action on an issue of critical importance.

2)  Follow-up of previous Assembly meetings 

2.1 Uros Kojic, Sport Officer spoke about the situation with the World Championship

2.1.1 Uros asked for feedback about the possibility of the athletes to travel for training in this period in the countries present at the meeting and concluded to send an email request to all Assembly before taking the decision to set or postpone the 2021 Depth World Championship. The cut-off date for the decision is 15^th of June

2.1.2 Wild cards – Based on an earlier suggestion from AIDA UK, the Board proposed to consider 2 years (2019 and 2020) for the designation of the 2021 depth wild cards as due to COVID19 the year 2020 didn’t give equal chances for athletes to qualify. After a short discussion, the Assembly concluded to accept the recommendation and Uros will implement it.

On 8 April 2021, the AIDA Board voted to create a Jury Control Committee. The purpose of this committee is to ensure the quality control of judge decisions during all official AIDA events.

The International Association for the Development of Apnea (AIDA) is thrilled to announce the AIDA Depth World Championship 2021 to be held in Limassol, Cyprus. This individual competition will be AIDA’s 27^th World Championship in their 29-year history.

The first point of the agenda was 1) the follow-up of the items agreed in January, followed by 2) the 2021 provisional budget which was the main subject this month and for closing, the Assembly discussed 3) the opening for the Technical Officer position and the eventuality to update the role of this position before the application request.   

POSITION: “AIDA GENERAL ADMINISTRATOR” (“President Assistant” during the training period)

Full-time position (8 hours/day and 40 hours/week) requiring flexible schedule to adapt to a team of volunteers with evening and week-end work sessions.

Providers shall send their application by e-mail to: board@aidainternational.org by the 20th of February 2021.

Desirable:

1) Get sponsoring (by creating an attractive brand image, a sponsoring program and managing the program to ensure results).

2) Provide media coverage for AIDA.

1) The AIDA Strategy was rediscussed during the Meeting and the Nationals concluded that it must be voted together with the update of the organisational structure, to open the paid position of Administrator (President/Board assistant during the learning phase). 

Date : 11th of October 2020

Participants:

- Alexandru Russu

- Kimmo Lahtinen

- Sasa Jeremic

- Uros Kojic

- Natalia Domashenko

- Oleg Melikov

- Olga Sidorova

- Marco Consentino

- Kostas Madouros

- Roberta Cenedese

- Juani Valdivia

- Hiroshi Ryu

Discussion items:

AIDA Strategy:

For the biggest part of the meeting, the Board discussed the AIDA strategy together with Natalia Domashenko (the consultant who facilitated this project) and agreed on the plan. The following step is to discuss it in a larger conf call with the Assembly.

We would like to ask applications for the following Board positions for the mandate 2021-2022:

Selection of candidates for the admin positions:  

• AIDA received many applications and we would like to thank everyone for this. The Board discussed the main selection criteria including covering the maximum number of languages, recommendations for reliability, etc.  and selected two candidates: Hiroshi Ryu and Maja Wisniewska. 

For the organization of the 2021 Depth WC, AIDA is searching collaborators.

AIDA Board meeting 05/07/2020 

Dear freedivers, 

Please find a new AIDA International COVID-19 newsletter, prepared by the Medical & Science Committee of AIDA International.

Dear freedivers,

 Please find a new AIDA International COVID-19 newsletter, prepared by the Medical & Science Committee of AIDA International.

The Medical & Science Committee of AIDA International has been monitoring the situation with COVID-19 since the very beginning of epidemic. Since March 2020, the freediving community have been provided with weekly newsletters and practical recommendations that can be found on the AIDA website: https://www.aidainternational.org/Home/News

We thank all contributors and we're happy to use the AIDA platform to distribute the information to the freediving community. 

We are happy to introduce the release of the AIDA Youth Programme, which aims at teaching water and safety skills to children and adolescents. AIDA Youth Instructor qualification is earned by passing an online course that is available to all active AIDA instructors who holds first aid certificate that includes child care. The enrollment will be free of charge for one year from the date of the release of the programme (until May 10^th 2021).

Aim of the weekly Medical & Science Committee newsletter is provide you with updates on COVID-19.

Please "read more" to access to the full report. 

Aim of the weekly Medical & Science Committee newsletter is to provide you with updates on COVID-19.

Registrations open on the 15th of April. For any information concerning the event please contact events@aidainternational.org

- Please send your application (resume & motives) for the position of president at : board@aidainternational.org until Mach 11th (23h59 UTC).

- The Assembly will be asked to vote between March 12th and March 22nd to elect the new president.

Sadly, Carla Sue Hanson, our president, lost her fight with cancer. 

Her smile, charm and kindness won over freedivers all around the world. She was the soul of our beautiful sport. A strong woman and a professional she worked tirelessly over the last decade to change the image of AIDA and freediving.

Judge and student cards

Carla opened the meeting with a discussion regarding the identification cards issued by Reprof for judges and freediving Ed. Students .  Alex indicated paragraph 7.2 from the Statutes as reference for the payment approval, but based on the particular sutuation the Board decided that the money was paid by the students and AIDA will pay Reprof without further delay.

AIDA is pleased to announce the launch of the FEMR (Freediving Emergency Medical Responder) course, a new first aid course that includes a special emphasis on freediving-related medicine.

Agenda

1. Setting up of a bank account in Switzerland in favor of the association
2. Pay Pal Account
3. EOS Database
4. Entering Results by the Organizers
5. Sport Officer has to send a letter about new problems/rules
6. Recognition of New Zealand
7. Education Commission report
8. Insurance DAN
9. Pool Championship 2020
10. Rooms at WC 2019

Read the topics dicussed on the latest AIDA board meeting.

The AIDA Executive board has made a final decision regarding the suspension of an athlete from Denmark.

Due to an outstanding number of applications for Assistant Judges the Board decided to give active and engaged Judges the chance to gain experience from the upcoming World Championship.

The Board was happy to welcome newly elected  members Sasa Jeremic ( treasurer) and Irina Fedoskina( secretary) . Vedran Milat has been training and transitioning work to Sasa . She was previously his assistant, so she had a basic understanding of the role. Carla and Alex Russu ( both having been secretary in the past)  will have a meeting with Irina to familiarize her with the secretary duties.

(Bi-fins, NRs, WRs, Protocol, Equipment, Medical)

The AIDA Executive board decided the suspension of the athlete Mikkel Branth from Denmark who tested positive for doping.

With the implementation of the BI FINS discipline in CWT and DYN, we would like to inform you that AIDA has set a minimum benchmark for World Record recognition

1) Do you accept Sasa Jeremic as AIDA Treasurer? 

            25 yes; 1 no

2) Do you accept Irina Fedoskina as AIDA Secretary? 

    24 yes; 2 no

 

       Vedran, Treasurer, presented the budget for the upcoming year 2019. The budget will be sent to the Assembly for review and approval vote in mid- November.

      The assembly will be asked for input. Vedran had asked for volunteers for a budget committee early in 2018 but received no responses or volunteers.  Vedran noted that a request for support for the Blue Element Competition was received and approved. Alex Russu requested that we establish first a criteria for support for competitions which will include several elements: number of competitors, judge course, media coverage, and marketing for Aida, Aida development target location, and contribution to Aida promotion overall. This particular competition will be making instructional judging photos and videos and a commercial for Aida .

We had a shorter meeting than usual due to the unavailability of Pim and Brian and topics which required their presence to discuss.

 Financial Report Vedran began the meeting with the submittal of the 2017 financial report which was reviewed and will be sent to the Assembly for approval. 

Alex Ursu (IT) started the meeting with a report on IT projects. He said all the results from Belgrade WC have finally been added except for a very few. The new  judge system is working well .A new application for excel and live uploading of results is coming soon. This will save time and simplify the procedure for all .

Topics out for vote: Location of the 2019 World Championship, countries to be admitted to observer and full member status, demission of the AIDA Secretary.

AIDA instructors from Russia, Nikolay Kanivets and Konstantin Borisov, developed a Method of Teaching Freediving to Visually Challenged People. The authors volunteered their know-how and provided a course manual to be published under AIDA’s name.

Items: Doping issue, Team WCh , Competition Rules , Votes to send out , Swiss Registration , Brian DC case, Depth WC proposals for 2019

Dear fellow freedivers,

In June we closed 2018 AIDA Individual Pool World Championship. We followed many great performances and personal bests. We witnessed great organization and excellent conditions. Some of you again pushed forward known human limits in pool freediving and established new world records.

The study will take place at the end of June 2018 durring the AIDA Pool World Championship in Belgrade and athleted are invited to participate

We would like to request applications for local collaborators to organize the 2019 AIDA Depth World Championship.

The Aida Board met via skype call on March 31, 2018.

Vedran stated that our finances are solid and he said we need to reach targets and spend wisely. Any changes can be made in an amendment and proposed to the Assembly. The financial statements for 2017 are currently being consolidated and once they are reviewed by the accountants , the statement will be available for review by the Assembly .

Vedran and Alex R. discussed a plan to offer financial support for both top competitions and those organized by smaller groups.  Vedran suggested that we initiate a pilot program to offer a €500 grant contribution to national championships . All eligible nationals may apply but must demonstrate a dedicated media plan to promote Aida and have a minimum number of national participants. Vedran also suggested that larger competitions might also apply to receive a contribution to facilitate Aida awareness and visibility in high-profile areas . The Board voted to approve the pilot program.

Brian presented a comprehensive report from the education department:

from AIDA Chief of Safety

Please find here the Wild cards for the AIDA Pool World Championship 2018

Vote topics : Secretary , Stipend / Salary

Start of election: January 9^th 2018 14:00 GMT

End of election: January 19^th 2018 14:00  GMT

Sport Officer report from Uros Kojic: Stavros has said that he would be willing to host the Team World Championship but there would be mandatory requirements for accommodations and number of competitors in order to meet the costs .

The Board voted to approve two new IT candidates: MJ Kuhn and Marick le Hérissé. Congratulations to our new ITs!

The Board approved the 2016 financial report and released it for the Assembly vot

The Board approved 700€ for the trip of Antero to Austria to represent AIDA at the next EUF meeting.

Vedran presented the overall balance for the AIDA Bank and PayPall account. Alex requested also the bank statements to be made available to the Board and it has been decided the bank statements to be uploaded by Vedran on the AIDA DropBox

This report has been written by Pascal Berger and Miguel Lozano. Note that neither of them were present during the accident so they did their best to interview all the people present to get the clearest picture possible.

1. Promotions: Sendoh Wang (China) has been promoted Instructor Trainer and Serov Alexey (Russia) has been promoted Judge level D

2. 2016 Financial reports: the documents have been received by the Board and are presently under evaluation before an Assembly vote request

1. Selection of a new Vice President: Following the demission of Mario Zuzic, we would like to ask for applications to fill the remaining time of the VP mandate (end 2018). Please send your applications until the 10^th of October 12 am UTC at board@aidainternational.org. An Assembly vote will be scheduled for 11-21 October.

We are pleased to inform you that we are offering free of charge* (*for non-commercial use) to our community all World Championship videos received based on the Diveye contract. We hope you can make good use of this investment; see the technique of top athletes, learn from the best and in exchange please promote AIDA in your circle of friends and generally promote our sport!

Number of valid votes: 10

Australia, Canada, Finland, France, Netherlands, Poland, Romania, Russia, Sweden, UK.

Number of invalid (late) votes: 1

Japan

Number of countries not voting: 25

Austria, Brazil, Belgium, Czech Rep, , Cyprus, Croatia, Denmark Greece, Israel, Serbia, Slovenia,  Switzerland, Mexico, Korea, Latvia, Spain China, New Zealand, Malaysia, Bulgaria, Germany, UK, UAE, Ukraine, USA, Venezuela.    

Vote: Freediving Rules for Competitions and Records (August 2017)

Result: with 2 YES votes and 8 NO votes, the proposed rules document is NOT approved.

Vote counters: Olivia Motus- Jaquier and Alexandru Ursu-Vlagea

1. We were happy to hear from Esteban that 26 nations registered already for the World Championship.

2. Carla signed the contract for having Diveye in Roatan to enhance safety and for the promotion of our athletes , the promotion of AIDA, and generally the promotion of freediving. The Media/PR Officer will follow-up for live streaming the Championship to AIDA YouTube channel. The cost of the service is covered from the marketing budget approved by the Assembly for 2017. Ren Chapman in charge of the safety team now strongly requested this investment saying it's a small amount if it prevents injuries and saves lives.

Attending:             

Carla Sue Hanson                   (6/6)

Uros Kojic                              (6/6)

Mario Zuzic                            (4/6)

Vedran Milat                          (5/6)

Alexandru Russu                    (6/6)

Antero Joki                            (2/6)

Denys Rylov (IMedia/PR Officer)     

Irina Zelenkova (Medical Officer)

Attending:             

Carla Sue Hanson               (5/5)

Uros Kojic                          (5/5)

Jean-Pol Francois                 (5/5)

Vedran Milat                       (4/5)

Alexandru Russu                 (5/5)

Alexandru Ursu (IT)             (1)

RESULTS UPDATE:  May 26, 2017

After the 26th of May re-vote (for the judges with equal results), Junko Kitahama and Savvas Savva joind the 2017 World Championship jury and Cedric Palerme was promoted to the Ai judge level. 

The final composition of the jury is:

Alex Russu

John Wright

Ekaterina Romanova

Radoslaw Gaca

Junko Kitahama

Savvas Savva

And the list of judges beneficiating of special Ai promotions is: Gaca Radoslaw, Lahtinen Kimmo, Romanova Ekaterina, Rose Fran, Zuzic Mario, Palerme Cedric

At the proposal of the Judge Responsible, the AIDA Board approved the following judge promotions on April 12, 2017

Following the Assembly vote from the 22nd of March 2017, the following changes will be made to the AIDA Competition Rules and the Judge International Procedures and Operations: 

Update 1

Purpose:  For Aida International to assume the ownership of the video rights to be able to promote AIDA and freediving

NEW rule: 5.2.8 (Tech Doc) All official video images of the attempt become the property of Aida International. Aida International has exclusive rights to the official video

Alex presented the status of the Assembly member’s renewal for 2017. The official deadline expired on the 31^st of March and we have at present 21 voting members in the Assembly. We invite the remaining 16 countries to proceed with the renewal and inform us (at: secretary@aidainternational.org) so we re-activate their member rights.  You can check the status of your country here:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/dmjgg5m68lrn7uz/contacts%20AIDA%20assembly%202016.xlsx?dl=0

We had a total of 34 countries voting with 31 valid votes and 3 invalid votes (late)

IOP – Yes 24
No 7

Irina presented the priorities for the new members of the Medical office:

• Fix the imprecise medical info from the manuals
• Make flyers on the important topics (e.g. narcosis, squeeze) – to add a new webpage on the site for them
• Start a long term study concerning the FD effects on the cognitive functions

Suggestions received by the the Medical Office from the Board:

• follow-up with Erika Schagatay on the advances of the squeeze study
• monitor the medical publications related to freediving & brief us

1st vote item : Approval of the 2015 financial statements

2nd vote item : Approval for the proposed 2017 Budget

ITs vote: the Board voted to approve the applications of Felice Mastroleo (Belgium) and Agata Bogusz (Poland) for AIDA Instructor Trainers (pending validation from their AIDA Nationals)

EOS 2: Jean-Pol will prepare the requirements definition for a tender to update the EOS

All AIDA members are requested to follow-up with their AIDA Nationals and participate to the votes for Board elections, Observer Members and 2017 World Championship until the 15th of December

Participants :

1. Carla Hanson (President)
2. Mario Zuzic (Vice President)
3. Ute Gessmann (Sport Officer)
4. Vedran Milat (Treasurer)
5. Petar Bojovic (Judge Responsible)
6. Alexandru Russu (Media/PR Officer)

The meeting was opened by Vedran who reminded the importance of the Statutes changes for finalizing AIDA registration in Switzerland. Carla confirmed 31 positive votes and zero negative votes for the statutes changes. With a proportion of over 2/3 of member countries, the vote for statutes changes is valid and Vedran will move forward with the lawyers to finalize the paper work.   

Following internal discussions in the AIDA Assembly, the vote closed on the 15th of Novomber shows the majority of countries is in favor of continuing the World Record (WR) Attempts: 11 countries voted YES, 9 voted NO and 1 country reported a draw (during their internal vote process they received the same number of votes for YES as for NO)  

Congratulations to Alexey Molchanov for bettering his CWT World Record to 129m in a dive of 3:50 minutes. Alexey said the dive was hard. There was a lot of current today

In response to the suggestions received from our community, we are requesting now the Assembly vote for continuing or discontinuing the World Record (WR) Attempts outside competitions and we encourage all our freedivers to participate to their National's decision.
The initiative was generated by the example of the other sports and the assumed conflict with the principle of equality which is a fundamental value of our competition regulations. On the other side, the WR Attempts as a differentiating factor on the international sport arena proved over the years to bring publicity to AIDA and motivation to the athletes without a significant alteration of the equality principle. The argumentation is complex and we leave you to investigate deeper, have a democratic debate inside your National and make the final choice.

We are getting closer to the end of the year and, as per the point 6.2 of our Statutes, it is time to elect the following executive officers for the next 2 years mandate: Vice-President, Sporting Officer, Secretary and Treasurer. Additionally, the Executive Board is requesting applications also for the (non-executive) position of IT Officer.

As part of the Steinlager Live Dive Attempt held on July 20 in the waters of Dean’s Blue Hole, Bahamas, New Zealander William Trubridge broke his own freediving world record by swimming completely unassisted to 102 meters (334 feet) in a time of 4 minutes and 13 seconds.

The athletes kept the best for the end! The last day of the AIDA Pool World Championships from Turku was also the most exciting with the men DYN podium having a world record on each one of its three steps: Oleksandr Bubenchykov came up at 289m and then we had not one, but two 300m dives! With no shades on the white of their cards, it was only a regulation detail on the announcements that helped deciding who gets the gold between the Greek Giorgos Panagiotakis and the Polish Mateusz Malina!

The reults of this morning DNF finals from Turku are now out and we have new World Records for both women and men categories! The Polish Magdalena Solich does 3m more than the previous DNF World Record and sets the bar to 185m now for the girls! On the men side, Mateusz Malina did it again! After his 232m DNF World Record from Thuesday qualifications, he made it to the 244m mark with a white card! He is elated to have finally broken Dave Mullins 232m national record (NZ) which was greater* than the World Record for so many years.

After validating 9’23” in the qualifications, the Spanish Aleix Segura Vendrell confirms exactly the same performance today during the finals and secures the gold medal despite a late start penaly. With a white card at 9'14" and a difference of only 1 point, Goran Colak gets the 2nd place and on the 3rd place we have the Finish Timo Kinnunen with 8'02"

The qualification for the 3 disciplines of the AIDA Pool World Championships are now over and we have a rest day before the finals, so we’ll use it to make a round-up on the amazing performances we’ve seen until now.

Only a few weeks after taking the DYN AIDA World Record, Mateusz Malina sets today the DNF World Record (pending doping test) validating the distance of 232m!

The AIDA Board met via Skype call on 22 May, 2016.

1. Judges Promotion / Presented by Judge Responsible, Petar Bojovic.

There were 37 level E judge and 23 level D judge nominated for promotion and 57 judges of which in total have been promoted to the higher level. The promotion of this time is of the largest scale in recent years, which represents the commitment of our organization to promote more qualified judges.

The list below follows alphabetic order:

The wild cards are a privilige offered by AIDA to the top 10 male athletes and top 10 female athletes for each discipline, to automatically qualify for the World Championships independent of the selection done by the Nationals.

In this article, we say goodbye to our long-term president Kimmo Lahtinen, read about news from the IT-side of AIDA and talk about the upcoming world championships. There are also exciting news about the new education material and recent elections for the AIDA board.

The Aida Board met via Skype call on 14 November 2015.

Kimmo started the meeting on a somber note to convey our deep sadness for the people of France and Lebanon who recently suffered attacks by terrorists. We expressly wish to send our thoughts to Aida France and all of our members who were affected by this tragedy.

1 November 2015 , Kalamata, Greece.

The Aida International board met via Skype call on 14 October. An urgent matter that needed to be reviewed regarded the document sent to the Board with the findings of the Disciplinary Committee of the incident with the World record attempt of Guillaume Nery in Cyprus. The Board voted to approved the recommendations from the DC. Robert King declined to accept the offer to return to the vice-president office. The position will be added to the December elections for a one year term beginning 2016 January.

1 November 2015 , Kalamata, Greece.

The sun shone upon Stavros Kastrinakis, Aida International Renaissance Man: Instructor/ trainer, Judge, Organizer extraodonaire and now World Record holder. Stavros is best known for assisting others to reach their freediving goals but today he achieved a very well-deserved record of his own (pending doping test). Stavros said "The dive itself felt good once I was in the water and the way down was smooth and easy with my equalization holding well all the way to the bottom. The way up was long and at around 50m I had a feeling of "how much longer will I have to swim for? At that point I met my deep scooter safety Nicholas and I re-composed myself and continued to the surface were I completed a very clean surface protocol which I was happy about. I am glad to be ending our first season in Kalamata at such a high note and I am looking forward to the future."

September 28

The Board met via Skype call to discuss several items of immediate importance.

It was noted by Kimmo that the incident (Nery WR attempt) that occurred during the pre-comp in Cyprus has been referred to the Disciplinary Committee. The DC has the ability to gather information, assess obtained information, and make recommendations without concern of being influenced by outside parties. See note from Kimmo (Aida President) below regarding the DC process.

Date: 9 August 2015, 16:00-18:30 CET

Meeting: Conference Call (Skype)

Attending:

Kimmo Lahtinen (5/6)

Ute Gessmann (3/6)

Jean-Pol Francois (5/6)

Carla Sue Hanson (6/6)

Robert King (6/6)

Vedran Milat (5/6)

Per Westin (1/6)

Absent:

Antero Joki (3/6)

Petar Bojovic (2/6)

Date: 6 June 2015, 16:00-17:45 CET

Meeting: Conference Call (Skype)

Attending:

Jean-Pol Francois (4/5)

Carla Sue Hanson (5/5)

Robert King (5/5)

Vedran Milat (4/5)

Absent: Kimmo Lahtinen (4/5)

Ute Gessmann (2/5)

Antero Joki (3/5)

Petar Bojovic (2/5)

Per Westin (0/5)

Date: 10 May 2015, 14:00-16:30 CET

Meeting: Conference Call (Skype)

Attending:

Kimmo Lahtinen (4/4)

Jean-Pol Francois (3/4)

Carla Sue Hanson (4/4)

Antero Joki (3/4)

Robert King (4/4)

Vedran Milat (3/4)

Petar Bojovic (2/4)

Absent: Ute Gessmann (2/4)

Per Westin (0/4)

Date: 21 March 2015, 15:00-17:00 CET

Meeting: Conference Call (Skype)

Attending: Kimmo Lahtinen (3/3)

Jean-Pol Francois (2/3)

Carla Sue Hanson (3/3)

Robert King (3/3)

Vedran Milat (2/3)

Absent: Ute Gessmann (2/3)

Antero Joki (2/3)

Petar Bojovic (1/3)

Per Westin (0/3)

Date: 21 February 2015, 15:00-17:00 CET
Meeting: Conference Call (Skype)

Attending:

Kimmo Lahtinen (2/2)
Ute Gessmann (2/2)
Carla Sue Hanson (2/2)
Antero Joki (2/2)
Robert King (2/2)

Absent:

Jean-Pol Francois (1/2)
Vedran Milat (1/2)
Petar Bojovic (1/2)
Per Westin (0/2)