Summary of day three

The last day of Asian Freediving Cup 2018 was the CNF day. Traditionally, this has been the day with the most colours on the cards, since some athletes are getting tired on the third diving day, others athletes are pushing for podium positions, and yet others might want to finish the event strong with a national or personal record.

Sendoh Wang and Anqi Lim where both in the lead after day two, and both announced deep enough dives in CNF so that a white card would guarantee them the top position. There were also announced sixteen national records, and one continental record by Zhu Lin so we had a lot of exciting dives to look forward to.

Conditions here in Panglao were a bit better than day two, and much better than day one, so the expectations were high on what the day would bring. In the end we got a quite colourful day with three yellow, eight red, and 32 white cards, including 10 national records.

The first, and deepest, dive of the day was by Thibault Guignes that wanted to make a second attempt on improving his French national record to 108 meters. He made it to the bottom on the first competition day, but spent too much time on the surface protocol so he ended up with a red card.
This time it went well, and after 3 minutes 44 second of diving, 12 seconds of surface protocol, and 18 seconds of waiting, he received a well deserved white card, and the day started great with a new national record for France!

At almost the same time at Line B, Chris Cheung, made a national record for Hong Kong, ending the competition with a dive almost 30 meters to his old national record of 61 meters set in Asian Freediving Cup 2017.

Back to Line A the next white card was given to Paul Sack, that set his third national record for Malaysia with a strong dive to 70 meters constant weight. This made him the first of four athletes getting a hat-trick of national records during Asian Freediving Cup.

Directly after Zhu Lin made a strong attempt at the continental record of CNF (held by Sendoh Wang) with a dive to 68 meters, but he had a small dip and spent a tiny bit too long on the surface protocol, so he was awarded a red card.

Next up among the big dives: Sendoh Wang with a CNF dive to 65 meters, to secure another win of the Asian Freediving Cup. He made no mistakes, and finished the surface protocol in known Sendoh-style, which led to a long wait before we could give the well deserved white card.

Shortly after, Asian Freediving Cup regular Stanley Sradaputta got his third white card, and third national record for Indonesia, which made him fifth overall in the competition.

Jang Ji Hoon from South Korea also made his dive on the last day to secure second place total, only five points behind Sendoh. This was his third national record during the competition, to Jeong Min Parks big frustration during the closing party.

A bit earlier Ken Kiriyama from Denmark had failed at his attempt at 70 meters CNF, opening up for Chen Chao to get third place, something he managed with a white card dive to 55 meters.

Back on Lin A, second placed woman Mao Xia of China got disqualified for pulling the line during her dive to 38 meters, something that would make her fall down to sixth place in the overall ranking.

The women competition would be settled with three straight dives on Line B, first out: leader Anqi Lim of Singapore with a CNF dive to 45 meters. She made no mistakes, secured the top spot of the competition, and became the fourth diver with three national records.

Suzanne Lim and Jung A Kim made no mistakes either, and finished 2nd and 3rd with dives to 40 meters, for South Korea this was a national record.

: Top 5 overall:
Left to right: Ning Ning Li from USA (5th), Li Jing Zhe from China (4th), Jung A Kim from Korea (3rd), Suzanne Lim from France (2nd), Anqi Lim from Singapore (1st), Sendoh Wang from China (1st), Jang Ji Hoon from Korea (2nd), Chen Chao from China (3rd), Zhu Jin Yi from China (4th), Stanley Sradaputta from Indonesia (5th).
Photo: www.aquaticity.asia

Other national records on day three:

In addition to the national records mentioned above, we had national records for the Philippines by Maria Noella Zosa, Hong Kong by Tracy Lau and Belgium by Jean-Pol Francois.

Overall Results:

Many divers decided to focus on individual disciplines, which is why we see so many zeroes in this table. To get points in the overall ranking the athletes had to follow the discipline selected for the given day.