Beautiful static pictures

Morten Bjørn Larsen, danish photographer, took some great pictures from the competition and was kind enough to give me a copy of the ones he took of me. You can see his pictures in my other posts from the DYN and DNF disciplines.


Also static can look cool if you know how to shoot it ;) This is Anna coaching me on the warm-up before my static dive to 6:02.

DYN A final: 183m and fourth place

I'm feeling a little overwhelmed, happy and tired now that the finals are over. It was so exciting and there were so many good performances. My own dive was done almost on autopilot untill 150m, where my legs really started to give up on me. I kept swimming with my arms though, not wanting to come up, which got me all the way to 183m and another Norwegian record!!!

I couldn't be more pleased with this dive (or maybe I could. it's always a little sad to be nr.4 ;) ) and the fact that I did good performances in all three disciplines. Now we are off to take the largest underwater group picture and then party!

DYN qualification: 178m and NR

I came up maybe a little early in the static finals, at 5:14, but maybe it was a good idea to save some power for the dynamic qualification. This was the one dive I did not want to mess up in any way...

5 minutes to official top I was listening to Maria Mena's "Calm under the waves" and slowly turn away from this world and into the dive. I kicked off and then pretty much fell a sleep the next 100m. It was a beautiful dive and I kept telling myself that I want this, I really want this. Then I saw the markers for the 175m, did another stroke and came up with a big smile.

With this dive, I'm officially back! After two years, it was about time with a new pb... It's been hard getting back here, but I have learned so much through the struggle and now I'm feeling stronger than ever before.

Tomorrow I will dive in the A final. All these max dives are pretty hard mentally and physically. It will be a good test for my legs. They got pretty lactic and even walking some stairs is hard work. I wonder how diving will be...

STA: 6:02 and A-finals!

Sometimes the body works for you, and even static is not that horrible, almost enjoyable. Today was one of those days. Much thanks to my lovely coach Anna, I made my first static past 6 minutes since the world championship in Hurgada, 2006.

It was such a lovely dive, and I came up with more to go. I even made it into the A-finals, so I will dive side by side with Natalja, Kathryn, Lotta and the rest of the girls tomorrow morning.

Now I've gotta go rest and prepare for the DNF B-finals, which starts at 19:00. :)

New norwegian record: 118m DNF!!!

I had a great start of the competition with a clean and nice 118m dive, which is a new national record by 5m. I also made it into the b-finals, which means I'm swimming again tomorrow and have a chance to improve the record still.


The static competition is tomorrow morning and I'm starting at 10:34. Wish me luck!

FreeWC09 and Team Norway

More and more athletes are arriving in Århus now, and everything is starting to be ready for the worldchampionship. The opening ceremony is this afternoon and the competition starts off with DNF tomorrow. My training has been going well, and I'm feeling confident so far :) See the full schedual and more info at www.freewc09.dk.


From Norway we are a almost a full team, two women and four men. This is a new record! It's very nice to have both new and more experienced athletes joining. To read more about the norwegian team members and AIDA Norway, check out the blog.


On Friday, a package arrived for me. It was a sponsored, brand new Speedo Fastskin suit! As I've been working alot with DNF recently, I have discovered the importance of glide... And this suit is a big improvement there, compared to the normal swimsuit I've been using. Big thanks to Speedo!

Sightseeing Aarhus!

Kathryn and I took the sightseeing tour last weekend...

The first thing on the on the list was The Aros, the city's biggest and most famous art museum with collections covering the 18th to the 21st century. The building itself is an amazing architectural experience with a spiral staircase connecting the 8 floors. We spent quite a few hours wandering among the paintings, sculptures and installations.

Afterwards we headed back in time, visiting The Old Town, a living and breathing museum of a danish market town.

We secured an important part of our freediving diet these days, a little bit of cake!


On Sunday, we travelled a little outside of town to find some peace and beauty in the Japanese Garden.


The waterfalls, the carps, the trees and the flowers, they all created a wonderfully pleasant experience and we left feeling calm and relaxed. Perfect build-up for a freediving world championship.

Now it's less than a week left. I've finished my trainings, and all that is left is adjusting the last details in weightning and resting alot.

Visit from New Zealand

Kathryn McPhee is visiting me at the moment, a sidestop on her "around the world" trip (which includes the world championships etc). I traded a couch for some world class tips in DNF.

One of these are closely connected to wearing a suit, which I have been considering for some time now. The extra bouancy and the weight give more momentum in the movement, and better glide. I really felt this on the last training, where I got to try Kathryn's Orca Apex 2:



I'm also working on improving my weightening, putting some more lead on the hips to keep my feet down. Another important thing for me is to remember to keep my head in the right position. That became quite clear on the recent DNF videos I've done.


Kathryn and I are both having a great time here in Aarhus now, slowly preparing the last things for the upcomming world championship.