On April 4th and 5th, a significant part of the competitive freefall community gathered again in Bedford, UK for the annual Worldchallenge. This event is the largest indoor competition in the world and considered the unofficial World Championship of Indoor Skydiving. It has been growing consistently and this year’s 9th edition welcomed 87 FS4 teams (Rookie, A, AA and AAA) and 17 Freefly teams (D2W and FF2) – again a record. Teams came from, I believe, 25 countries.

Raising the bar

Host, Paul Mayer keeps raising the bar year after year by adding new features and extras to the format and this year we had Worldchallenge TV, providing live broadcasting all day with interviews and site footage, that was also available for those not present via livestream.

It always surprises me that the facilities look different every year as well. The building now houses a restaurant, flow rider, race simulator, climbing wall, spa, swimming pool, power fan jump, kid’s playhouse and lodging facilities. Oh…and a windtunnel, obviously.

The level of competition is extremely high as the best teams in the world are present and the number of attending teams guarantees close battles at every level.

Slow Draw

On Friday morning, the general briefing was followed by the live draw and very soon it became clear that this was not going to be a record average breaking 10-round meet. The only real fast round was round 11, the jump-off round. One would almost hope for the need of this tie-breaker…

Hayabusa

Before the start of the meet, everyone knew that NMP PCH Hayabusa was going to run away with the gold medal and the GBP 5,000 in cash. These Belgians are the best (indoor) team in the world at this moment and no-one from the attending field would come even close to them. They soon secured their 4th consecutive win…

Tight Race

However, the race for the other podium places (and prize money) was wide open and was promising to be super exciting. It showed… XL (with arguably their strongest line-up ever), Volt’R (the new French national team) and Gavroches (4 guys from the famous former French 8-way team) fiercly battled it out and took turns in occupying 2nd, 3rd and 4th position. In the end, XL and Volt’R were tied in second after 10 rounds and they were forced back in to the flying chamber for the quick round 11…

They both lived up to expectations and delivered a sweet jump, with XL scoring just one point more than Volt’R. Congratulations to NMP PCH HayaBusa, XL, Volt’R and Gavroches !! Our team, Thunder ISR, was involved in a close battle with SportLoto from Russia, the Qatar Tigers and South African Voodoo and in the end SportLoto beat us by two points. Congrats!

Female

In the female category (with 10 teams attending), all eyes were on the new confrontation between the Aerodyne French Girls and the Golden Knights. As expected, the French team took away first place. However, the distance with their closest competitors was smaller than before. This promises to be a tight race at this year’s World Championships!

By the way, the French girls would have placed 5th in the Open category (if they were to compete in this category). Nice ! Congratulations to both teams and also to Kaizen (the UK national female team) for taking 3rd place.

Next Year

The dates for next year’s World Challenge are already announced and I am sure that it will be another fantastic event, especially since this will be the 10th edition. We will be there !!

Sven Ibens, Team Thunder

XL’s jump-off round, videoed from the viewing gallery by Billy Payn