From October 1st through 7th, 2000 the Canadian Association of Freediving and Apnea (CAFA) for the first time in a world competition sent a Canadian Men's and Women's team to the prestigious AIDA World Cup of Freediving in Nice,
France.

Freediving or breath-hold diving is the sport of achieving depth, time or distance in the water on one breath of air, much like the pearl divers of the south pacific. Constant ballast is swimming down to depth, retrieving a depth marker and swimming back unassisted on one breath. Static apnea is breath-hold in the water for time. These two disciplines were highlighted at this world competition.

The World Cup was attended by many countries from around the world which included 26 men's teams and 9 women's teams. Most of these countries have been participating in freediving and competitions for decades such as the Italians, French, Spanish, Japanese and many more.

Team Canada did very well at this competition and more importantly, were great ambassadors for Canadians as a whole. Our women's team were very impressive and placed 3rd out of 9 very competitive and strong teams. The Canadian men placed 4th out of 26 teams. Most impressive of all is that Team Canada placed 2nd overall in the men's and women's just below Team France. Along with our international successes, we had several personal best's recorded along with a couple new Canadian records being set.

All of this shows our strong talent and determination in freediving and apnea and we are very excited about the future for Canadian freediving. We look forward to the future and towards the development of freediving as a sport and recreation within Canada.

Our competitive energies will now focus to the most prominent of all competitions in freediving, the world championships in Ibiza, Spain September/October 2001. With this we must look towards a partnership with sponsors to help us prepare the new Team Canada for greater and more rewarding successes at this competition for all Canadians.