The 2007 CMAS World Games was the first and only edition of the CMAS World Games, an Olympic style tournament for underwater sports organised by the Confédération Mondiale des Activités Subaquatiques (CMAS) and hosted in Bari, Italy.[1]

2007 CMAS World Games
Host cityBari, Apulia
Country Italy
Events5 sports
Opening31 July 2007
Closing4 August 2007

CMAS created the event in attempt to boost popularity of underwater sports by combining the world championships of the sports under its purview into one event. However the concept ultimately failed due to discontent from the individual sports bodies as a result of being forced out of their pre-established competition calendars, which affected some sports more than others, and ultimately resulted in the 2007 event being the only one ever organised and played.

Opposition

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Underwater hockey

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The World Underwater Hockey Commission, a group under the CMAS Sports Committee, opposed the World Games on grounds that their advice was being "consistently ignored" and that they were "ignoring our sport" and "[attacking] the democraticly elected commission".[2]

On 2 January 2007, the British Octopush Association (BOA) pledged full support to the commission opposing CMAS in the process, joining the opposition from the underwater hockey bodies from Australia, Canada, New Zealand, South Africa, and the United States.[2]

On 19 January, following further meetings, while still overall opposed to games, the BOA release a statement saying they saw the games as "an exciting opportunity for underwater sport". They also announced while they wouldn't send an official team to the games, they wouldn't not oppose their athletes attending.[3] Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, and the United States did not send athletes to the games, while Canada and The Netherlands (like Great Britain) did not officially participate.[3]

Events

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The games included events in the following sports:[4]

Venues

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Numerous swimming pools in Bari would host the short course finswimming, underwater hockey, and underwater rugby events, while long course finswimming and underwater orienteering would be held in the Bari harbour basin.[1] The Riserva naturale statale Torre Guaceto [it] was earmarked to host the underwater photography event,[1] however this ended up not being part of the World Games with a separate event taking place in Port Louis, Mauritius.[10][11]

Results

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Finswimming

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The finswimming tournament contained 36 different events:[5]

  • Events are mono-fin unless otherwise stated.
  • In Apnoea events participants must complete the race in one breath.
  • In Immersion events participants compete without snorkels thus must surface for air.
  • In Surface events participants complete with snorkels thus can breathe throughout the race.
Event Men Women
Gold Silver Bronze Gold Silver Bronze
50m Apnoea   Igor Soroka   Evgeniu Skorzhenho   Nikolai Tover   Boa Zhen Zhu   Huan Shan Xu   Galija Sattarova
Surface   Evgeniu Skorzhenho   Dmytro Sydorenko   Cesare Fumarola   Boa Zhen Zhu   Huan Shan Xu   Margo Artushenko
bi-fin   Pavel Kulakov   Andrea Rampazzo   Eslam Ahmed Shama   Valentine Artemieva   Marina Maksimova   Nicole Fiscarelli
100m Immersion   Igor Soroka   Andrey Burakov   Cesare Fumarola   Boa Zhen Zhu   Jing Li   Camile Heitz
Surface   Cesare Fumarola   Andrey Burakov   Andrea Nava   Boa Zhen Zhu   Huan Shan Xu   Margo Artushenko
bi-fin   Pavel Kulakov   Andrea Rampazzo   Vladimir Sokolov   Valentine Artemieva   Csillia Károlyi   Marina Maksimova
200m Surface   Stefano Figini   Andrea Nava   Benoit Castera   Jing Li   Vasilisa Kravchuk   Boa Zhen Zhu
bi-fin   Andrea Rampazzo   Daniel Kokai   Stefano Zerbini   Hajnalka Debreceni   Lilla Lengyel   Marina Maksimova
400m Immersion   Ioannis Tsourounakis   Igor Saprykine   Szilard Vilhelm   Jiefen Huang   Ye Sol Jang   Irina Polojshentzeva
Surface   Stefano Figini   Andrea Nava   Pavel Tcelischev   Jiao Liu   Vasilisa Kravchuk   Olga Shlyakhovska
800m Immersion   Ioannis Tsourounakis   Szilard Vilhelm   Igor Saprykine   Jiefen Huang   Ye Sol Jang   Irina Polojshentzeva
Surface   Stefano Figini   Ionnis Tsourounakis   Young Ju Yun   Jiao Liu   Xin Yu   Melinda Wirtz
1,500m Surface   Stefano Figini   Young Joon Yun   Fabio Picchi   Jiao Liu   Xin Yu   Melinda Wirtz
6,000m Surface   Raphaël Smolin Froissart   Maksym Chornyi   Aleksey Vouslovskikh   Marine Grosjean   Tatiana Tzoy   Tatiyana Krasnogor
20,000m Surface   Pavel Babkin   Dmitriy Kokorev   Enrico Schultz   Anna Andrievskikh   Emilie Thienot   Lyudmila Chukhnova
4×100m Relay  
Russia
 
Italy
 
Colombia
 
China
 
Ukraine
 
Russia
4×200m Relay  
Italy
 
Russia
 
Ukraine
 
China
 
Russia
 
Hungary
4×3,000m Relay  
Russia
 
Italy
 
Germany
 
Russia
 
Ukraine
 
France

Freediving

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No sources available

Underwater hockey

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Participants:[12]

Men[13] Women[13]
Gold Silver Bronze Gold Silver Bronze
 
France
 
Turkey
 
France
 
Turkey

Underwater orienteering

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No sources available

Underwater rugby

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Participants:[14]

Men[15][14] Women[16][14]
Gold Silver Bronze Gold Silver Bronze
 
Finland
 
Sweden
 
Norway
 
Germany
 
Sweden
 
Norway

Aftermath

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Finswimming

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Finswimming was temporarily moved of it two year competition cycle to accommodate the world games. No championships were cancelled though a number of continental championships were postponed to 2008 or held in quick succession with the world games before the competition calendar could be re-established. Subsequent world championships took place on odd years instead of even years.[17]

Underwater hockey

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An alternative world championships was held by the World Aquachallenge Association (WAA) in 2008 (in following with the sports two year competition cycle) following the schism created between national bodies who were for and against the world games,[18][19] thought this was the only WAA championship to occur with CMAS re-establishing control of the international game in 2009. The 2009 championship was greatly reduced in comparison to pre-schism tournaments with only men's and women's elite tournaments occurring.[20] Strangely, the 2009 edition was called the "Underwater Hockey World Game".[21] A full world championships, with masters and youth tournaments, did not occur until 2013.[22]

In 2008, the year of the WAA World Championship, CMAS held their European Championship tournament, which under the normal two year competition cycle would have been in 2007. The next edition took place as planned in 2010,[23] but with World Championships still being rebuild, the next European Championships did not occur until 2017.[24] A tournament was planed for 2015 but did not take place.[25]

Underwater rugby

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Operating on a four-year competition calendar, with the last word championships in 2003, underwater rugby was not affected.

References

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  1. ^ a b c Kft, dotindot. "CMAS World Games/Why Bari 2007?". archives.cmas.org.
  2. ^ a b "BOA gives full support to UWH Commission (Bulletin 97) | The British Octopush Association". www.gbuwh.co.uk.
  3. ^ a b "CMAS Bari Games Update (Bulletin 101) | The British Octopush Association". www.gbuwh.co.uk.
  4. ^ "🇮🇹 Finalizan los CMAS Games Bari 2007". August 6, 2007.
  5. ^ a b Kft, dotindot. "14th World Championship / CMAS Games". archives.cmas.org.
  6. ^ Kft, dotindot. "4th World Championship / CMAS Games". archives.cmas.org.
  7. ^ Kft, dotindot. "15th CMAS Underwater Hockey World Championship / CMAS Games". archives.cmas.org.
  8. ^ Kft, dotindot. "2007 - 13th World Championship / CMAS Games". archives.cmas.org.
  9. ^ Kft, dotindot. "8th World Championship / CMAS Games". archives.cmas.org.
  10. ^ "It's not about the winning". The Diver Group of Companies. Retrieved 25 June 2013.
  11. ^ "Two prizes to Turkish team at underwater championship". Turkish Daily News. 22 May 2007. Retrieved 25 June 2013.
  12. ^ https://www.sportalsub.net/blog/tiempo-de-hockey-subacuatico/
  13. ^ a b https://hydrouwh.com/blogs/hindsight-diary-quebec-2018/quebec-2018-18-nzl-tur-semi-final-prologue
  14. ^ a b c https://www.sportalsub.net/blog/2007/08/04/bari-2007-rugbysub-finales
  15. ^ "UWR WC 2007 MAN FINAL Sweden - Finland 0-1 (0-1)". October 13, 2020 – via YouTube.
  16. ^ "UWR WC 2007 WOMAN FINAL Germany - Sweden 2-0 (1-0)". November 1, 2020 – via YouTube.
  17. ^ https://web.archive.org/web/20210303055445/http://www.cmas.org/finswimming/finswimming-championships-archive
  18. ^ "World Championship results". World Aquachallenge Association. Retrieved 8 June 2013.
  19. ^ "2008 - 15th World Underwater Hockey Championship (sic) Durban, Natal, South Africa. 25th April - 3rd May 2008". www.underwaterhockey-archive.com. Retrieved 9 June 2013.
  20. ^ "KRANJ 16th CMAS UNDERWATER HOCKEY WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP". CMAS. Retrieved 9 June 2013.
  21. ^ https://www.gbuwh.co.uk/news/boa-bulletin-172;-congratulations-to-gb-squads-in-slovenia
  22. ^ "Underwater Hockey World Championship 2013 Eger- Hungary. Information Pack is out".
  23. ^ https://archives.cmas.org/hockey/2010_europian_underwater_hockey_championship.php
  24. ^ https://archives.cmas.org/hockey/15th-cmas-underwater-hockey-open-european-championships-eger-2017-hungary
  25. ^ https://www.sportalsub.net/en/14th-european-underwater-hockey-championship-open-turkey-2015/