The freefly competitors did their last 3 rounds and the meet is over. The Russian skydivers, who had been in second place all the way through, have created a stir around the world, with their imaginative and perfectly timed routine. It went semi-viral, even confirmed belly flyers loving and sharing it. The worldwide skydiving family had already chosen their World Champions.
The strange thing was, the judges didn’t seem to agree, as the French freeflyers have been leading all the way – with a routine that showcased great individual flying skills, but in which they are not flying as a tight team. An exciting battle began, with the Russians making up ground on the French, drawing level by round 4… then dropping behind again. The penultimate round they clawed some back, and went into the final round 0.1 points behind the French. In a nail-biting finish, the French put their best score on the board, 9.0 .. what would happen to our favourites? … A stonking last round with their personal best score of 9.2 just slipped them past the French and into the top spot! Result!
The Venezuelans took bronze, giving Olav Zipser two sets of prize money (third in freestyle), not bad for the granddaddy of freefly!
8-way
Team Assar 8 were sitting on a commanding lead of 5 points at the start of the day, having stamped a mark of authority on the meet with a blistering round 5. Assar had an unlucky day with busts, losing a point for no separation on one dive (which was a fair call) and a whopping 2 points on the next round. This was the kind of bust where the judges are (perhaps) correct by the letter of the law but competitors – and journalists – feel they were robbed!
On one of the Block 13s (double satellite), one of the sidebody grips is on a double arm grip in the centre pod. Because the rules state a sidebody must be an arm and a leg of the same person, a majority of the judges bust the top and bottom of the block, as they felt the offending hand was on top of the wrong arm.
While this may be within the rules it’s confusing and somewhat contradictory, when you compare this to block 17 (Danish Tee) or 18 (Zircon) in 4-way, which are other cases where three grips coincide. In this case it is the rule that the grip becomes continuous, so an individual has free rein to take the grip where it suits, which can be an arm of one flyer, or the leg of another. Well, that’s competition for you!
8-way is now a tight finish with 3 jumps to go. The untrained Monaco team of champions is improving as the meet goes on, and are now just 1 point behind Assar (106 points to 107), with a strong Russian team just 4 points behind. It’s a great race.
Full scores and video at: Omniskore
Image gallery at: JuanMayerProductions
