Zlin Cup 2009

The Zlin´s competition for the second time with some changes. From the outside pool – in which we were terribly cold last year – the competition moved inside and I decided to swop the competing for coaching. I wanted to experience the competition from the other side and contribute to the success of my club colleagues who planned on participating in the competition for the first time in their career.

To be honest I was more nervous than they were but managed to keep it to myself. Well, I hope so. With the backpacker full of light and energetically valuable food for athletes, enough water, papers with the statics preparation and at an ungodly hour (6:30) we set off to Zlin.
Zlin Cup has its own stable clientele and also this time notoriously known names appeared in the pool (Mrozowski Michael, Honysch Jan, Oujezdská Jana, Plačková Lucie, Škrobová Jana, Szalontayová Veronika, Veverka Radek, Rišian Michal) besides the ones who competed for the first time – and this is what I like about this competition so much. National record holders and world championship participants have been organically mixed together with the beginners and what can be better than seeing Czech, Slovakian and Polish elite “in action”.

Before the competition it was clear that from our club there are too many competitioners and too few coaches. Fortunately everybody was disciplined and announced the start statics times to avoid serious collision. And everybody made me very happy - Pavel Ostrý 4:08 a white card and a new personal record, Daniel Ondrůj 3:55 a white card and a personal record and finally Ondřej Vavrečka 4:31 a white card and a personal record, too. All of them proved themselves as big fighters who resisted the contractions. Especially Ondřej, who I strongly prompted to dive out when his body had been twitching in contractions like a pressure pot, but he decided to stay underwater and made a great performance. Must be said that for those mentioned above it was the first competition ever. In statics the women’s national record was broken and Lucie Ptáčková from Freediving Team Ostrava with the time 5:51 is its new holder.

Next discipline of the competition was dynamics without a fin. Here my coaching was a disappointment :-( Daniel Ondrůj dived out at 50 meters and made a mistake in protocol. He showed “I’m ok” without taking off his mask. Unfortunately I was too far away to react in any way and take him through the protocol one more time. At the end I found out that Dan had not even wanted to dive out but before the turn he had made stronger movement than intended and got his head above the water level. Surprised what was going on he automatically showed the jury the signal and the jury gave him a red card. Pavel Ostrý got to the 50 meter and Ondřej Vavrečka to 58 meter level, both with the white card and again with the personal records. Well, competition suits them, moreover when I remind myself Ondra making excuses during the training that there is no way for him to reach more than 25 meters DNF.

Highlight of the DNF was definitely the performance of the colleague Jan Melichar -129 meters. It was a beautiful dive with great atmosphere with everybody cheering him up and shouting at him even though he was underwater and could not hear us. At that moment we did not care. I watched him with pounding heart while turning on the 125 meters – even in the wrong line – but “Hansi” coped amazingly with it including the return to the correct line, dive out and protocol.

Complete results to be found here:

I will not mention the afterparty. It is all the same anyway… Cuban “fists” and dancing.