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.
News
Latest happenings and events
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:
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 10th 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.
On behalf of the Medical&Science Committee please find our weekly newsletter 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.
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.
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
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? 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
STA
Female
Rank
country
FirstName
LastName
Points
AccomplishedValue
Abrv
StartDate
Name
1
AT
Veronika
DITTES
84
7:00
STA
2017-02-26 00:00:00
5th Tyrolean Apnea Cup
2
CZ
Katerina
SURANSKA
82
6:50
STA
2017-06-03 00:00:00
AIDA Czech National Championship 2017
3
NZ
Kathryn
NEVATT
81
6:45
STA
2017-09-15 00:00:00
Splash Freediving New Zealand Pool Nationals 2017
4
CN
Jessea
WENJIE LU
78
6:30
STA
2017-05-14 00:00:00
Deja Blue 8
Vote topics : Secretary , Stipend / Salary Start of election: January 9th 2018 14:00 GMT End of election: January 19th 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.
The recordings of our 2017 World Championship deepest dives are now available for the AIDA community
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) YES votes NO votes 2 8 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
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
"AI" judges
Prochazkova
Pavlina
Hanson
Carla
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 31st 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: Suggestions received by the the Medical Office from the Board:
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 : 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.
On the 6th of September, during the Bonaire Deepsea Challenge, Jeanine Grasmeijer validates a new FIM World Record with a dive to 92m. This is the 2nd FIM World Record of Jeanine, after the 90m done in 2013 and, at 23 years old, she is today the youngest athlete with an actual freediving World Record.
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 Attending: Kimmo Lahtinen (2/2) Absent: Jean-Pol Francois (1/2)
Meeting: Conference Call (Skype)
Ute Gessmann (2/2)
Carla Sue Hanson (2/2)
Antero Joki (2/2)
Robert King (2/2)
Vedran Milat (1/2)
Petar Bojovic (1/2)
Per Westin (0/2)
Please read the following changes and implementations regarding Competition rules.
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