Maja, now 24, started skiing when she was 2, gymnastics aged 6 and did a tandem jump aged 10 with her father. Five years later, during the official FAI competition in Prague, she became the first junior champion in indoor freestyle. Maja, talented, determined and hard-working, has never looked back, winning or medalling at countless other tunnel competitions. This year she is dedicating herself to skydiving, entering freestyle at the forthcoming World Championships in October.
When did you start tunnel flying Maja?
About six months after the tandem we went to FreeZone, the tunnel in Moscow. At that time there were not many tunnels. Another six months later they opened Hurricane Factory in Prague, that just happened to be where we lived so that was a really lucky coincidence. I started training mostly because of my Dad; it was his hobby and he took me along because I really enjoyed flying. Somehow, I just kept doing it.
Did you always want to do freestyle?
There wasn’t any freestyle back then, not in the tunnel. Freestyle started as a discipline in 2015 at the World Championships. I won that one, in the junior category. I thought that was the most interesting type of flying. Then I did some 2-way Dynamic but I wasn’t a big fan of the compulsory rounds. So I just kept doing freestyle. There are more things that you can do with freestyle, it feels more creative and artistic.
Video: Maja performing at the World Indoor Skydiving Championships 2023, where she won a silver medal
What made you so competitive at such an early age?
I don’t think I’ve ever been a very competitive person. I just really enjoyed going to the competitions. Imagine, to a child, going to competitions was like a vacation, you can take time off school [laughs] and travel to another country. I was pretty straightforward kid, I didn’t have any aspirations to be the best or become professional, it was just fun and I loved it!
Do you still have that element of fun, you still enjoy competing?
That’s the cool thing about being able to transition into skydiving. With the tunnel I sort of get a cold dark vibe because when you train for indoor world championships they are always in the spring. I train in Poland, and all the winter months are dark From about 10 in the morning till 3 you have a few hours of sunshine and the rest of the day is darkness. So, then you’re at the tunnel in the dark and you’re always alone in the tunnel so after some time it started to feel a little bit lonely. So that’s why I’m really enjoying the transition to skydiving because now I can skydive in the sunshine in the big blue sky, with a friend. It’s so great to have someone there to share the fun with… you land and are buzzed up together – ‘wow, that was so cool!’
When did you start skydiving?
I did my AFF in 2017 but at that point I was still in high school, then later I did a year of. university so the first three years I didn’t do so many jumps, maybe about 200. And then around three years ago I started skydiving with my current partner, Mairis [Laiva], and then started jumping more often because it was fun again, and more convenient, because I always would have someone to go skydive with me to share the pleasure.
How did you get together as teammates?
Mairas worked at the Flyspot tunnel and I was training for competitions so I was hanging out there so we got to know each other. I really enjoyed flying in the tunnel with him. We have very compatible styles of flying, and also compatible weights, which is something that most people don’t really think about but when you fly with someone who really heavy, then as a small person, they feel really slow. Mairis is really tall but super skinny so we have very similar speeds. He also has the same sense of fun and adventure.
What are your team goals at the forthcoming World Championships this year?
Well, we are shooting for a podium place – but it’s our first competition so everything is okay. We’re trying our best and we’d love a podium place but we have no idea how it will go in reality. Based on the rules it should be pretty good because we are trying to make our routine very difficult according to the definitions in the rules. But we’ll see what happens. In the tunnel I’ve found that even if you do everything according to the sheet it’s hard to tell whether the judges think that the routine is sufficiently difficult. We’ve tried to put everything in that the judges say is hard but… well, we’ll see.
How difficult is it to compete in a subjective sport like freestyle as opposed to an objective sport like speed?
I’ve been competing for more than ten years now in the tunnel and it’s always been a struggle. A lot of times I’ve felt blindsided. I’ve turned up believing that I have everything on that page written down, I made my routine perfectly according to that and then you find out that what the judges meant was different to what you thought they meant, and that can be difficult.
How do you cope with that? Losing a medal because of a misunderstanding?
Again, I’m not doing it for the medal, I do it because I think it’s really fun. [laughs]
Video: When Skydiving meets Art, by Alex Aimard
How long will you keep competing?
I’m not sure if I will keep competing in the tunnel. In skydiving I want to compete because it will be really cool and novel for me. But I also see myself in an alternate dimension, a world where I wouldn’t compete, I would just make pretty things. I feel I’m definitely more of an artist than a competitor. I enjoy making beautiful movement and sometimes it gets me down a bit that competitions are about proving that ‘you’re the best’. Which is not really the goal for me. I love competing because you get to hang out with all the people in the sport. Especially as I’ve been doing this throughout my child and teenage years, a lot of my friends are from the tunnel community, so it’s the time of the year when you could get to meet with all of your friends around the world. That’s the coolest part.
Photo: Naim Chidiac / Red Bull Content Pool
What does your training plan look like for the World Championships?
We have already done 500 jumps since May. It is completely different to get ready for a skydiving competition than it is to get ready for a tunnel competition. Tunnel flying, if you are determined and you have the stamina, you could book 2 hours a day and get ready in a month. For skydiving, it is a very big time commitment. You have to be at the drop zone every day for months. Because there are always going to be days when there are too many people, not enough people, weather, winds, you know. I really enjoy it though. The people at Skydive Spain have been absolutely brilliant and a huge support. The biggest support is that they are manifesting us on every load. The biggest problem is getting the jumps in. It’s not just about figuring out how to pay for them. If a dropzone decides that you’re not allowed to double manifest and there’s 200 people at the dropzone you do three jumps in like 10 hours. At Seveille we do as many as possibe.
How many jumps do you do in a day?
Here in the summer in Spain it gets really hot in the afternoons, so right now we’re doing eight jumps in a day – four jumps back-to-back, then we take a little break, then another four back-to-back. Usually, we’ll finish the first four around 10am and the second four at 1pm. Then it gets a bit hot and turbulent so the DZ closes in the afternoon. If we were training in the winter we’d be able to jump all day. But that’s not necessary.
Do you sneak in a fun jump at the end of the day?
We haven’t put any fun jumps in for a couple of months. We need to get through the competition then go back to work to pay for it. This has been the most insanely expensive thing I’ve ever tried to do. [laughs’]
How do you keep focused on just repeating the same jump again and again and again?
There is so much to work on. With freestyle it has to be so insanely precise. And a lot of the times you don’t know if something went wrong until you land. Even though it’s only a 45-second routine we have a bunch of different moves. At the beginning we were making a mistake with every single move, so you just attack the first one, then tackle the second and so on. Because it’s our first competition we’re not really practiced. It has taken us 500 jumps so far just to get to the point where I feel kind of almost ready… but we’re hoping to get another 50 jumps in to get the routine dialed in and near perfect. It will be a lot easier after that first competition because we will know more where we’re at, at least in the compulsory rounds.
Do you have a coach?
In the tunnel I had a coach when I was a kid. I was coached mainly by Ty [Baird] but when he died. I was a little rebellious, “I don’t want to fly with anyone other than Ty” … I really loved Ty.
In the sky a couple of years ago we got coaching from Will Penny, which was really wonderful. This year we were struggling a bit with the funding so we couldn’t afford to get coaching – but Yohan [Aby] decided to help us make the routine –– just out the goodness of his heart. Then just recently Jimbo [Jim Harris] has been hanging out with us and helping a lot.
Who else is supporting you ?
If we get on the podium I’m going to take a piece of cardboard up with the names of all the people who helped us for free. It was mostly Yohan, Jim, our friend Victor, and massively Skydive Spain, that they agreed to support us. It’s really difficult in Europe to find a drop zone that is in a position to help with the jumps.
How is skydive Spain as a team training place?
I haven’t seen a dropzone that is this well organized. I have so much good to say about Skydive Spain. The loads always go fast, they use two or three planes very efficiently. The staff are amazing, the packers are brilliant, the bar is really cool; it’s a great place to be. It’s my favorite place to train that’s for sure.
What’s your favourite tunnel?
Flyspot of course. That’s my home tunnel. They have supported me since the day they opened. Giving me tunnel time and supporting me for competitions. I was there when they opened, helping to wash the windows. It was so cool to get our own tunnel in Poland, and we just had our 10-year anniversary.
What does it mean to you to be a Red Bull athlete ?
It means a lot to me. I started with Red Bull nice years ago, which is really weir d because I am one of the youngest Red Bull athletes in Poland, but I am one of the longest running athletes to be sponsored. It’s a great company because there are no major mainstream companies that support skydiving and tunnel flying, like Red Bull do. Big brands don’t support skydivers, only skydiving brands but because skydiving is a niche sport they don’t have the resources to support skydiving in the way a large company can. It’s great that they can do that. They are not very strict. It’s not that Red Bull expect huge things from you without giving back, they are very nice people.
Photo by Samo Vidic / Red Bull Content Pool
What was your favourite stunt?
The Game of Air. I got to skydive next to a plane. It was insane visuals, going head down and there’s a plane 20 metres away from your face, and going ‘whee’ spiralling all the way down. It was also awesome because I am a big fan of helicopters and my favourite helicopter was there, the Airbus A star and I was filmed from the outside. I’ve never seen skydiving footage filmed from a static object, so you could actually see the speed. You could see me falling and the background was zooming away like crazy.
Video: Game of Air
How do you cope with your ultra fast spins, don’t you get dizzy?
I was always the kid that liked to swing around in the hammocks and I love spinning myself around in the air!
Anything you would like to add for our readers?
Please watch the World Championships. The more people who watch the competition, the more likely that there will be sponsors in the future that will support other skydivers. That is basically the goal of everything I do, is that our sport will grow to the point where more people are able to do it and actually live from it, which would be wonderful yes?! So please watch the World Championships!
Thank you Maja, best of luck with your training and have an awesome World Meet!
Video: Above the Noise
Follow Maja on her social channels:
Video: Maja’s medal-winning routine at Wind Games
