VB 201() Profile - RYUZO SHINCMIYA

Ryuzo Shinomiya is by now a regular at Dean's Blue Hole, having competed at both previous Vertical Blue invitationals and the World Champs. It was at the 2008 edition of VB, where Ryuzo became the first person from the Asian continent to break the 100 meter mark, that he earned his name as the Okinawa Dragon - we only recently discovered that Ryu actually means dragon in Japanese! The adjunct 'zo' means three, and this April Ryuzo will be thirty three years old, so perhaps this year the dragon will roar even louder...

One feature of Ryuzo's freediving is that he is always rock solid on the surface - not once has he been disqualified for a samba or blackout. Early turns due to equalisation have been his curse, but if he can increase his equalising depth then he definitely has the oxygen in his 9.6L lungs to dive a lot deeper.

Last year he added three meters to his PB, to finish on 107 meters. Will he add another 'zo' in 2010 to enter into the dizzying club of 110-meter divers? In two weeks we will find out... already he is at 90m, after less than a week of depth training.

statistics courtesy of http: / / apnea. cz/ ranking. html?

Nice image of the dragon, I will tatoo it! by chi hair dryer on 2010-04- 16 10:41:00

who made that painting? by Joe` Shmoe on 2010-10-02 16:26:08