The Italian skydivers kicked off the 2021 skydiving season in style, with two new records! Emanuele Bielli reports…
We wanted to get 2021 off to a great start: setting a new Italian Record during the first event of the season with the Skyvan at Skydive Fano!
We thought of an ambitious goal: a 20-way Head-down Sequential, but due to a couple of last-minute cancellations we were 17 on the weekend of 7-9 May.
Participants
Let’s talk immediately about the participants: some veteran flyers of these events, who are the foundations of the formation: Leonardo Elia, Matteo Conti, Michela Saporiti, Diego Costa, Alberto Terraneo, Marco Santapaola; VFS competitors Carlo Barni, Dennis Broglia, Gabriele Grossi and myself and the Italian Army VFS representatives VStorm: Andrea Cardinali, Marco Soro and Stefano Falagiani; and FreeFly competitors Andrea Degortes and Benedetto Roccotelli… but above all, the flyers on their first record experience: Cecilia Langella with 550 jumps and Lorenzo Mogliotti with 650 jumps.
Game on!
On previous months we had organized a couple of camps to approach the record, Cecilia and Lorenzo have shown that they have developed the skills to join the record jump attempts, also thanks to intense training they had in the tunnel. In a record the emotion plays an important role, but in designing the formations it was decided to put all the participants at ease, assigning the “favorite slots” but always taking into consideration the only goal: to set a new Italian Record!
We started by declaring to the judges two formations and in the first 2 jumps it seemed that the goal was really easy to achieve. But on the following jumps we had problems with the exit of the base and as everyone knows: no base – no formation. So we made a couple of adjustments and on the sixth try we set the new Italian Record of a Head-down Sequential 2 points 17-way. Woo hoo!
we set the new Italian Record of a Head-down Sequential 2 points 17-way. Woo hoo!
Sunday morning we redesigned the formations to close the third point. Although the sequence was technically more difficult with only 3 jumps we closed the 3 points – another Italian Record of a Head-down Sequential.
This is the fourth year in row that we have set a new Italian Sequential Record for Vertical Formations (both Head-down and Head-up). Many thanks to Skydive Fano, Livio Piccolo and Pink Skyvan who have granted us the altitude to achieve these records; the cameramen Cristian Giorgi and Tony Borgogni; the Judges Roberto Mascio, Sandro Gargini and Totò Marrocco.
we closed the 3 points 🙂
Dedicated to Dima
As a group we have dedicated this record to Dima, Dimitri Didenko. Skydive Fano was the DZ where he was born and grew up first as a skydiver then as a flyer. His early death struck all of us who knew him and with whom we shared jumps and events, and with whom we began this adventure setting our first Italian Record of Head-down Formation, in 2012.
Sequential Record Video
Gallery – Images by Emanuele Bielli
