A record attendance of 78 teams showed up at Skydive Hibaldstow in September 2014 for the UK 4-way FS Nationals. Surely this must be the largest National 4-way competition ever? The field was evenly spread throughout FS, with 19 teams in AAA, 17 in AA, 18 in A and 20 in Rookie (plus a guest rookie team). Without the Bad Lieutenants the VFS field was much quieter but had only 3 teams.
AAA 4-way
With National team Satori not competing this year, it looked as though we’d have a good fight on our hands between some well-matched teams. Vision 99 and Kaizen were fresh back from the World Championships in Prostejov, where they seemed fairly evenly matched on 16.4 and 16.1 average respectively. Mike Hayes had returned to the line-up of Vision 99, who had picked up super-sub John McIver for the Worlds and were also jumping at both competitions with Steve Hamilton in place of an injured teammate (Debbie).
With the top spot open, the speculation all season was that last year’s bronze medallists Kaizen would win, as their second year together with this line-up, and with the amount of training they’ve done over the past two years. However, last year’s silver was taken by Voodoo, with World Champion Gary Smith as their fourth member so they were always in the running as well. Voodoo picked up Liz Matthews this year (in place of Gary) and did 50 training jumps. They were very much the underdogs but had the potential to win despite the limited training. Voodoo have previously competed at the UK Nationals as a guest team (they were all South African by descent) but were entering this year for the first time as British Nationals by virtue of living in the UK. They’ve been the South African 4-way team for what seems like forever, and must spend all their precious holiday on jumping judging by the amount of times I bump into them!
The first day of jumping saw a fairly even fight across the top 3 spots and ended with 4 rounds judged and just 1 point between the 3 teams. Round 5 proved to be the turning point of the meet. Kaizen, already a point down, lost 4 points to Voodoo, who accelerated away afterwards for a secure gold and record 19.5 average, leaving a field of five other teams to squabble closely over the remaining hardware.
A big surprise was Vision 99 who ended up winning the silver medal by one point. Vision have trained a lot this year and with coach Steve Hamilton achieved a dream average (18.5) and their first ever medal at the 4-way Nationals. Kaizen just lost out by one point. Both teams scored a 2-point better average than at the World Championships, mainly due to a faster draw and more forgiving slipstream.
In fourth 4mula were another turn up for the books, producing a 17.4 average with coach Joey Jones and super-sub Ms Sian Stokes in Tail. Fifth by one point were Bodyflight Isis, who had lost their player-coach Sarah Smith due to visa issues but found an enviable replacement in Sparky, the UK’s longest running World Champion. It was fabulous to see the competition light shining in Sparky’s eyes again and the sheer pleasure written all over her face.
Just behind them were Eclipse, with a well-deserved 15.6 average in AAA, this team has worked hard starting at the very bottom and progressing well through all the classes despite initial inexperience.
Honorary mention, 10th out of 19 teams were Festina Lente, who had a brilliant meet. These guys haven’t done much together but used their collective experience to fly to a 13.3 average, normally only achievable after lots more training. Just behind them were the entertainingly named Lowabusa, with world medallist Katie Woods enjoying filming camera for her better-known brother James.
Further down the tables the normally all-female Team XX had changed gender to team XY, picking up Vince in place of Vicky who had an injured back. Their first jump together was round 1; this considered they had a great nationals making a 12 average with every round in double figures in spite of a few ‘moments’ !
Unusually the Nationals draw was a dream with all the randoms in the pool, some fast rounds and the slot switchers together. This helped many teams peak at their best-ever average, including the top 3.
AA
The teams that came first, second and third have been battling it out together all year at the UKSLs so it was no real surprise to see their placements at the Nationals. 2014 has been a series of friendly fights between Equal Pay 4 Women and Phoenix, who are very evenly matched. This made for exciting video, and the suspense continued to the end, with the judges only viewing this round some 2 hours after they had finished jumping. Equal Pay made a magnificent last round but Phoenix were already too far ahead and had an equally tremendous jump. Phoenix were utterly smug to take the title and score the last blow for the season … until Bodyflight’s Revenge meet coming up in October?!!
In a fairytale ending Equal Pay 4 Women and Phoenix are combining next weekend to enter one team in the 8-way Nationals. The team is named after the margin between victory and defeat at an earlier competition between them – ‘nine hundredths of a second’!
It was Bodyflight Aero’s first year together and they have shown potential from the start of the year. In particular, their point flyer Guiseppe only started 4 way this year and has been on a steep learning curve throughout this season. They skydived exceptionally well to a 14.8 average, taking the bronze from more experienced teams in the field of 17.
Chatterchicks continued their theme of adding some fun and tongue-in-cheek glamour to 4-way competitions, and have improved since their first competition this year, the Bodyflight World Challenge.
A
Kintama, captained and coached by Hib’s Events Manager Stu Ferguson, put in a fine performance; solid skydives and a fun-filled attitude to romp home to the gold. They established an early lead and never looked back, finishing 17 points ahead of nearest rivals Flywild. Despite the large gap, Kintama were undoubtedly in the correct category, having very little 4-way experience till this year and training only at weekends at Hibaldstow. Congratulations!
Skydogs were in third place for the entire competition until a funnelled exit put them back a place. They took 20 seconds to get together and after that tore up the round. They ended up in fourth place missing bronze by one point, which was stolen from under their noses by the aptly names ‘Nobody Expects the Wurst’.
Rookie
An epic battle for first place between Naughty Slots and Perpetual Chaos continued to entertain us the whole meet. Both teams had a disastrous round keeping it interesting. The very happy but slightly surprised collegiate team Naughty Slots finally took gold by just 2 points. RAFSPA Firefly, who pick up new team members all the time, took the bronze ahead of the pack. The prize for the best team name of the meet goes to Endwarfin (who have a dwarf on their team).
VFS
There were 3 VFS teams and looking at the field there was no doubt that the winner would be National Team QFX, fresh back from the World Champs. It was a shame not to see the Bad Lieutenants in attendance as they normally give the Q-guys a run for their money. But the good news was, there was a good competition in the rear, with the best ever average for the bronze medal team, and them scoring every round.
Fist 4 Glory and Tequila swapped places halfway through the meet, and had a great battle going on. It was great to see Weed on VFS video for Fist 4 Glory, possibly the most challenging slot for any competitive skydiver. Heartwarming to see the improvement in freefly skills to the point that two completely scratch teams can enter this hard discipline and score consistently; this bodes well for the future. (VFS aficionados check out the forthcoming Wind Games at Windoor in January, the only VFS tunnel comp, and they are looking at running 2-way VFS, to help entry in this discipline.)
Skydive Hibaldstow
Neither the high participation of 78 teams nor the entire Nationals being completed in just two days would have been possible without the incredible management of Skydive Hibaldstow, who go from strength to strength. Despite jumping not starting till 11 am on Sunday, an incredible 110 lifts were completed that day. This would be an amazing feat at any drop zone but is even more challenging given that teams have to be bussed down to the emplaning point, and bussed back from the landing area. Plus, there were a lot of people jumping on more than one team especially on the Monday when some people went home causing more doubling up, making manifesting a challenge/headache.
(Those wondering how this is even possible, read Simon’s article, The Skydive machine)
It was surprising to see 14 teams had to withdraw from the competition on the Monday as they had assumed the competition would be over by Sunday. It is advertised as a 3-day event (Saturday to Monday) so it’s wise to make provision for the last day. Hibaldstow’s management pull out a miracle every year to make the 4-way Nationals weekend happen and are so slick that now everyone expects a marvel as the norm!
Safety throughout the competition was excellent, with everyone following the simple rules, with a few reminders. New this year, Skydive Hibaldstow has a clubhouse and showers to match the professionalism and quality of the rest of their operation. The bar, restaurant and hanging out area is so smart that you feel you’re in a leisure centre, the only thing they have kept from the old bar was the prices! 🙂 They clearly have all their staff totally on side, it was sweet to watch so many people finish jumping with their 4-way team, speed-change into shirt and tie, and start serving at the bar. Chapeau! Prizegiving proceeded with the usual Hib razzmatazz, just without the sprayage of bubbly we’ve become accustomed to, their magnificent clubhouse deserves cherishing.
More detail on National Championships website
SkydiveMag.com interviewed the winners of each category, so keep a lookout for these coming up soon
