Domi Kiger, along with her rowdy bunch of Joy Rider XP teammates, are carrying the still relatively new discipline of Dynamic 4-way (D4W), as well as the recently added Dynamic 2 way (D2W) on their shoulders. After taking over as the main competition organiser from co-founders Håvard Flaat and Alex Aimard, Domi is keeping herself pretty busy training, competing and running the event.
Luckily there is a great crew behind the D4W mission. A network of friends and professionals all ready and willing to give their time to make it as awesome as it can be. For this competition, the Paraclete XP wind tunnel in North Carolina, also put everything they had into making this event truly epic!
The stage was set, the tunnel was ready, the event had been well promoted. It had been a few months since the previous competition, giving all the teams some time to train and bring something new. The set up for the competition again had a live stream so people all around the world could watch it live. Just like every other aspect of the event, the broadcast crew matched the trend of bringing a new level of professionalism to our sport.
#D2W
In the previous Dynamic competition the big upset was the defeat of the Antigravity XP team made up of Josh D’Annunzio and Zach Mullins, at the Extreme Barcelona competition at Windoor. Up until that competition they had gone undefeated in the 4 way. As a 2 way they were expected to be just as dominant, until Real Fly Zion comprised of Julien Guiho and Josh O’Donoghue showed up and put an end to the XP winning streak by taking the gold. Coming into this competition, at the XP home tunnel, all expectations were on the XP kids to step it back up and bounce back from that defeat and secure a home turf victory. But just watching the warm up sessions all of a sudden we noticed that all the teams had kicked it up a notch looking for the victory, and it was going to be no walk in the park for any of the teams.
##Final
After some intense, edge-of-your-seat tie breakers, the final came down to Antigravity XP and new Team Mandrake made up of Chris Dixon and Javier Serrano. The big surprise so far was just how good Mandrake were performing. We all knew as individuals both Chris and Javier were two very high caliber flyers, much like Josh and Zach. But being a new team and not having competed before, the odds were stacked a little more in XP’s favor. After 2 fierce competition rounds we ended with another tie breaker situation!!
In this case it is randomly drawn to settle the battle on either a free round or a speed compulsory round. This time out a free round was drawn. Both teams once again flew their free round and it was Mandrake who took the win with a very impressive and clean performance over XP’s also impressive round but which saw a few small mistakes costing them the win. Congratulations to Mandrake for killing it!
#D4W
In the 4 way it was yet again a step in the right direction for the sport. All the teams came out blazing with fire! Through the warm up practice sessions everyone was in agreement that any of the top 5 teams could take the win. Hurricane Factory, the longest running team of this competition was back yet again representing the Prague tunnel, The Skywalkers out of Voss Vind were back, I Fly Dynamic representing IFLY and new 4 way teams Hara Kiri Airspace of Belgium, iMtl of Montreal and Realfly Sion made up of the previous 2 way winning team of the same name from, Switzerland joined by Rafael Schwaiger and Fabian Ramseyer. Last but by no means least was the crowd’s favorite, the Joy Riders XP representing Paraclete XP!!
##RealFly Sion
Through qualifying however one team started to pull away from the rest. Realfly Sion qualified top through all of their pool qualification battles without suffering one defeat. It was to be the same story through the main event on Saturday. The team out of Switzerland raised the bar, not suffering one battle defeat through the entire competition and taking a commanding victory. They were faster, cleaner and flying with a higher technical difficulty level than any other team and thoroughly deserved the win. It was still a very exciting competition with some heated tie breakers. This time speed rounds were randomly pulled and each team had only 1 minute to memorize the round before going straight in and flying it.
##Nothing but Awesome
The competition was the best we have seen, and this credit has to go to both the hard work and dedication of the organizing team, but equally to the teams that trained so hard and put in such awesome performances. The Bar has been raised, to all those aspiring dynamic flyers out there, don’t get left behind!!!
#Thanks
Massive congratulations and thanks to Domi Kiger, Amy Chmelecki, Anna Moxnes, Sharon Har-noy, Sharney Perrow, Sita Nebelkopf, all the production crew, all the Tunnel crew (Yes that includes you Selwyn!) at Paraclete XP, the D’Annunzio family, especially Josh who was also running around organising and competing. Lastly all the judges, Ben Roane, Devin Roane, Tom Baker, Ari Perelman and my awesome co–commentator Andy Malchiodi.
Watch the finals of both 2WD and 4WD, below, for the excitement, atmosphere and stunning flying of the World War XP
Make sure to check out D4W.net for more information on score, rules and upcoming competitions
2-way Finals – D4W – WWXP: Indoor Skydiving Competition
4-way Finals – D4W – WWXP: Indoor Skydiving Competition
