The Golden Knights just beat their own World Record in 8-way, for the second time in two months! This epic jump was at the World Air Games in Dubai.
Before this year, the World Record was 31 points in time, set by the Knights in 1997 – it stood unchallenged. The Golden Knights set a new World Record of 32 at the US nationals, in October this year, some 8 years later. Now, less than 2 months later, they again put their names in the record books, with a clean 33.. in fact, it was close to a 34.
Unusually for 8-way the jump was an all-random round. In 4-way, a random sequence is always the fastest draw for a round, since there are only 4 people close to each other, with minimal movement needed. However, in 8-way, high scores including world records are almost always produced with a draw including fast blocks like 1 (donut flake, donut flake), 3 (danish tees, double donuts), 4 (snowflake, inout) and 15 (opal-zipper, zipper, opal). This is because the rapid execution is faster than the time taken for 8 people to release grips, move to a new formation and re-grip.
In this particular sequence (F, L, B, G, P), which was round 2 of the meet, the middle 3 formations are quite similar, with everyone facing forward, so minimal movement is required. It’s very impressive for 8 people to coordinate their movements, grips and keys to build 33 formations in 50 seconds. Their nearest rivals Russia made 26 points by comparison, then France 23.
After two rounds, UAE have 31 points, so a 15+,average, impressive for a team with many new members. They are just ahead of Qatar by 2 points, then Great Britain on a nice 13.5 average. Bringing up the rear are the Netherlands, who had a disastrous start, only building 2 formations and being bust down to a single point.
Golden Knights World Record skydive, 33 points, World Air Games, Dubai , 2015.
(F, L, B, G, P)
Congratulations to USA’s Golden Knights, reigning World Champions for the last two occasions, who are going from strength to strength, pushing the frontiers of 8-way forward, inspirational!
