#The biggest fight is with yourself
You can’t affect the other team in skydiving, so the biggest challenge is to keep it together within your own team – or not! Today we saw examples of not keeping it together in open and female.
#4-way Open
Round 6 – the puzzle is D, 18, P, 22… Canada pick up 2 busts, they are on track to get an award for the most-busted team in the competition. It’s not surprising though, they have only done 7 training jumps with this line-up! Having excelled to come from seemingly take bronze at Prosjejov’s world meet in 2014, together with a medal in VFS, they lost Katie Woods at the end of last year. Katie wanted to go full-on training with the goal of winning the next World Championships, but the Lemay brothers wanted to keep the fun element, and continue training VFS. Their belly 4-way team now has exactly the same line-up as their VFS team (camera too), and they are here competing in both events. Evolution did 7 jumps before the Canadian Nationals, so finished that event by more than doubling their jumps together! They are doing amazingly well all things considered but the lack of training is showing more outdoors than inside. This team is going to be phenomenal again very soon, a training camp will fix these errors and they will enjoy the satisfaction of a high learning curve.
From yesterday’s update you may remember Airspeed and Hayabusa have been tied virtually all the way, so every round is like round 1, except the finishing line is getting closer. We’ve included videos from yesterday’s round 4, of the top two teams in open and female. Today’s videos will be available tomorrow.
Belgian Round 4
6, E, O, L – score 36
USA Round 4
6, E, O, L – score 36
Airspeed are on film.. we watch intently. they struggle with the closes of the 18s – ooh! It’s a glitchy jump and they lose 3 points to busts, all on the 18s (zircon-zircon), scoring 19 (one less than the French girls but we won’t mention that) Hayabusa are up next .. they don’t have such a great jump (for them) either, losing a point and finishing on a 23.. the 24th was only just in so – had Airspeed not busted, the two teams could easily have tied on 22. But in reality the Belgians slip 4 points ahead of the Americans, on a dive they weren’t particularly happy with.
Round 7: M, H, 5, 15 (star, box, opal-opal, cat-cat) … could be fast for a really good team but requiring precision, not one you’d choose for weekend warriors! Airspeed are up first, again a great skydive but with a few hitches.. they bust twice and score a 29… Next, Hayabusa – they are fast but also pick up 2 busts… their score, 31, so they slip another 2 points ahead.
##Round 8
It’s Compress-me-up City with 16, 9, 12 (compress-compress, cat/compress, bundy-bundy). We ramp up the scoreboard with the team pace getting faster and faster. UAE, a lovely-looking skydive scoring 19.. France the same with a bust Evolution, 20 (with their usual bust), Qatar 19, Russia 23.. USA – they look back on form, lovely verticals on the bundy with the bottom piece chasing the top piece (that has a bigger turn) like a sheepdog to minimise the move. What of the Belgians? Dennis Praet from Hayabusa comes over to congratulate his friends and competitors, somehow I feel this means he knows they did a better round. Hayabusa are up. a collective ‘OOOH’ from the crowd when they bust on point 4… continuing.. the screen stops at 24 points – this round to the Americans. The rest of the Belgian team come up to hand-slap the Americans and they walk off to have lunch together, you would never guess that they are on ‘opposite sides’. That’s why I love this sport!
So, just the semi-final (21, K, G, Q) and final (11, 20, 3) to go, with Belgium 5 points ahead. The next round is a fast one, so anything could happen with these teams .. the faster they go with the random sprint the more likely they are to bust … and somehow, I don’t think they’ll be lollygagging! These two are way ahead on 220 and 215 to Russia’s 188.
#Female 4-way
Round 6 (D, 18, P, 22) saw the French increase their lead over GK4 by another point, putting them 4 points clear of the Knights, with just 3 rounds to go… Round 7, the puzzle is M, H, 5, 15. GK4 have nothing to lose at this point (bar the championships) and burn up the dive like crepe paper on a coal fire… scoring a mind-blowing 29 points! The buzz on the DZ increases, could this claw back those points from the French ladies?
The crowd of competitors become visibly eager to watch the live scoring, standing up and jostling for position. Whatever team you support this is a fantastic fight to see. We have now moved from the sandy wilderness of the race track dropzone to the green oasis of the Palm, and are reclined in posh chairs shaded from the sun, enjoying the ambience of watching alternately the live judging on house-sized televisions, and the spectacle of teams landing on the green.
The French are out … they are not looking so confident as some other rounds, definitely seem slower than the Americans.. the jump has some fits and starts, and not all the blocks are closing cleanly – and then – disaster! A grip is dropped in the 5 move, the girls are competition-savvy and move straight to the 15 without trying to close the 5, they know it’s busted.. but the damage is done. They lose 3 points to busts and are slower than the Knights .. the score stops at 20. Wow. 9 points down in a single round. Oh-la-la!
In an unbelievable come-back, the Golden Knights female 4-way rocket to the top of the scoreboard, now 5 points ahead from 4 behind.
French Round 4 from 10 December,
Puzzle 6, E, O, L – score 30
USA Female round 4
6, E, O, L – score 25 with 4 busts
##Round 8
France’s fluid style rack up 22 points with elegance and style. When GK4 walked off the grass they said to me “We’re trying to keep it interesting for your readers” Hmm that smacks of a not-so-good jump… i watch with bated breath… it doesn’t seem as good as the previous, with some catches rather than sweet closes of the blocks but they still rack up a fairly clean 21, one point behind the French. I say ‘fairly clean’ because the scoresheet shows a number of points that 2 out of the 5 judges bust. I’m guessing but perhaps the girls were anticipating a couple of busts and got a bit lucky with the score. These things have a tendency to average out as yesterday this was the story with a couple of the French jumps.
So, an exciting day that ends with the Americans in front, 4 points ahead of France, with the semi-final and final to go tomorrow. Canada are in third, 8 points clear of UK team NFTO.
