Tanay Mondial – Episode 1

With a diminished number of participants and challenged by the weather the first part of Tanay Mondial is over and it exceeded expectations…

The meet took place in Russia in two locations in Siberia – DZ Tanay and DZ Kemerovo, from 7th of August to the 21st of August. Six events in the competition are over, with champions decided in FS, VFS, CP, Speed, Style and Accuracy. The other events – WS, CF and Artistics – are still ongoing.

The FAI World Championships 2020 had to be cancelled last year due to the COVID crisis which basically shut down the world for some time. The competition was rescheduled for this year and, although the pandemic situation has improved overall it is still severe in some areas. So, it was not surprising that the attendance was probably the lowest in history. Many athletes called it “the mutilated Mondial” due to the low numbers.

Some teams and athletes choose not to participate due to the difficult travel situation or were not registered in the Meet due to National Federation decisions.

The weather was also on the challenging side to say the least, but even so, the first part of Tanay Mondial action was incredibly exciting!

To start this report the right way we need to send our congratulations to the Russian Federation, specially to Andrey Barabash and to the officials, judges, volunteers involved for all their efforts in organizing this event in such a challenging situation! 👏👏👏

24th FAI WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP OF FORMATION SKYDIVING

4-way Formation Skydiving

Originally 11 teams registered for the 4-way category, but an injury in the Czech national team during their Nationals prevented their team to attend, so the number of 4-way Open Class teams was in the end ten. It is the lowest number in the history of FAI World Championships of Formation Skydiving since the first edition in 1985. The formation skydiving events were run from Turbolet 410s, which have a challenging slipstream.

The competition was over after only 6 rounds due to the unfriendly weather in Tanay, with NMP-PCH Hayabusa defending their titles and winning their fourth consecutive gold for Belgium. They averaged 32.2, a huge increase on their 27.9 at the previous world championships in 2018. The US team SDC Rhythm XP took the silver with a 28.2 average and Qatar Tigers the bronze with a 26.7 average.

It was a very cool performance from the Belgian team, which had trained the new line-up with inside center Michele Silvi with great care, David Grauwels flying on camera at this meet. Awesome job, Michele!

Full results here.

4-way Formation Skydiving Female

The Female category was badly affected with only 4 teams registered in the end. The biggest disappointment was not to be able to see the British team NFTO fight for the gold, due to a decision by British Skydiving that the British delegation could not attend.

The competition for the gold medal was thrilling, with the lead changing several times. The meet was called on 6 rounds, like the Open. In the end the Russian team Bubbles won the battle on home turf by just 3 points in front of the French. The Russians had the advantage of familiarity with the aircraft, launching every point, while the French ladies took the safe but slower option of an E (Meeker) exit every time. Poland completed the World Meet podium with the No Mercy ladies, an historic accomplishment for a Polish team.

Aviatrixx from USA had a hideous and unprecedented situation in round 5, when their cameraman became unconscious on the rail and fell off. He regained consciousness later, immediately deployed, landed safely and was fully checked out by the medical staff. It seems it was a high blood pressure spike. None of the team’s points were on video so they received a zero. In a tragi-comedy of procedural errors, Aviatrixx were awarded a rejump, smashed it, and then had the score put back to zero again after a protest from another team. The mishap undoubtedly cost USA a medal. Kudos to the team for dealing sportingly with a difficult situation. The whole story is on the Aviatrixx Facebook page.

Full results here.

4-way Vertical Formation Skydiving

The American VFS team SDC Core are the undisputed ninjas of VFS. However, SDC had a disappointing first round losing 4 points to the Russians. They smashed the second round with 24 points to the Russian’s 13, and led convincingly for the rest of the meet to win their third World Championship title. Respect! Italy took the bronze.

Just four teams entered VFS – we are looking forward to the next World events, when we hope to see more teams joining the game. In one way though, the low attendance could be considered a blessing in disguise because the 4-way and VFS only completed 6 rounds, which might have been impossible with more teams.

Full results here.

8-way Formation Skydiving

For many years the 8-way competition has proved to be exciting in the extreme, with powerful, dedicated teams giving it all in order to win the title. When eight skydivers are moving in synch with full-on power it is a joy to watch.

Six teams entered the 8-way, and it was good to see the usual medal-contenders all represented in this discipline. A fierce battle took place with Airspeed XP8 from USA claiming the gold with a 23.7 average, just 1 point more than the French team, which had to settle for second place this time. The home Russian team from Tanay finished 3rd and kept the bronze medal in Russia!

A special mention to Kirk Verner, who won his first World Championships in 1995, with Airspeed 4-way, and has just won an 8-way World Meet gold medal, 26 years later!

Full results here.

If there’s one thing I have gained a greater appreciation for this past week at Mondial2020: Champions do not ‘hope’ to win – they choose to

Jim Rees, USA team Head of Delegation

3rd FAI WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP OF SPEED SKYDIVING

Speed Skydiving Male

The Speed Skydiving competitors had a close battle, with Kyle Lobpries from US taking the gold medal. From 6 rounds Kyle managed to score over 500 km/h speeds in 5 of them. Impressive! His first round performance – a speed of 508.93 km/h – also set a new World Record, beating Luc Maisin’s record of 506.35 km/h set one year ago.

The podium was completed by Henrik Raimer from Sweden and Luc Maisin from Belgium. Luc set a new European record surpassing Marco Hepp’s old one with a speed of 507.77 km/h.

Massimo Caramel from Italy set the first recorded World Record for Junior Speed Skydiving with a performance of 472.41 km/h, then beat his own record with 482.23 km/h, setting the bar for the future in this category.

Full results here.

Speed Skydiving Female

The Speed Skydiving ladies had a great competition with Maxine Tate winning the gold convincingly with an average of 438.21. Maxine set four World Records in her first four rounds! First she surpassed Mascia Ferri’s record of 418.25 km/h by over 20km/h and then improved to her best performance of 443.85 km/h. Well done, Maxine! This is the third discipline in which Maxine has competed at world level, and completely different to the other ones – Canopy Piloting and 8-way FS.

The silver and bronze went to two Russian competitors, who both set personal bests when it counted. Elena Laktionova took silver with an average of 418.83 km/h, and set two European Records, with a high of 430.53 km/h. Anastasiya Ignatova took bronze with an average of 412.88 km/h, and beat Elena’s time, setting a new European Record with 435.57 km/h.

Congratulations to all the record holders in Speed, pushing the frontiers of this discipline!

Full results here.

This has been a long journey, longer than expected but a journey worth taking nonetheless…

I’m going home with a new women’s world record in speed of 443.85 kmph and a gold medal in the female category. I’m very proud to be able to do that under the Team USA banner

Maxine Tate

You can also check the National team’s results and the ranking for the Open category here.

8th FAI WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP OF CANOPY PILOTING

Overall CP

Cedric Veiga Rios from France defended his title and won the Overall gold, in a field of 11 competitors. Cedric was followed by two athletes representing UAE – Abdulbari Qubaisi took silver and the amazing Cornelia Mihai (Romanian born 😎) took the bronze medal.

Full results here.

We all fought for 1st and the best one won! Congratulations Cedric Veiga Rios for defending your title and to my teammate Abdulbari Qubaisi for Silver Medal!

“Every champion was once a contender that never gave up” – See you at the next one everybody!

Cornelia Mihai

CP Accuracy

In the CP accuracy event only 2 rounds were possible due to the bad weather that prevented competitors finishing the last round. Abdulbari Qubaisi from UAE had perfect landings in the 2 rounds that took place and took the gold with a perfect 200 points result!

Curt Bartholomew from USA won the silver medal with 180.653 points and Francesco Italia from, no joke – Italia 🙂 took the bronze with 176.857 points.

Full results here.

CP Distance

The Distance podium was identical to the Overall, with Cedric Veiga Rios on first place, Abdulbari Qubaisi second and Cornelia Mihai third. Cedric is having a great year, having just come from the CP Meet in Klatovy, where he set a World Record of 195.32 m.

A special mention here to the awesome Olga Naumova from Belarus who set a new European Record for Female Distance with an impressive 147.47 m 💪!

Full results here.

CP Speed

The Speed part of the competition was dominated by the Argentinian athlete Marcos Darman who won two of the three rounds, taking the gold medal.

He was followed by the speed World Record holder Mario Fattoruso from Italy, with the Russian Vladimir Zaluzhnyi placing third.

Full results here.

Canopy Piloting National Team podium can be seen here.

36th FAI WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP OF FREEFALL STYLE & ACCURACY LANDING

Individual Accuracy Landing

Male

The competitors gathered in the second location of the Mondial DZ at DZ Kemerovo, and managed to do 5 rounds.

The best results in the Male category were obtained by Sylvain Ferroni from France who took gold with 2 cm total, and three zeros. He was followed by Jiří Gečnuk from the Czech Republic who also scored 2 cm and three perfect zeros, but lost due to the TB score. Tomáš Marcinek from Slovakia scored 3 cm and took the bronze.

Full results here.

Female

The Female competition was dominated by the Russian athletes, Olga Mastafanova taking the gold, followed by her colleague Ekshikeeva Lubov. Again both athletes scored just 2cm, with 3 perfect zeros but the TB decided the winner. Ollivier De Pury Leocadie from France completed the podium with a 4 cm result.

Full results here.

You can also see the results for:

• Freefall Style Male and Female
• Freefall Style and Accuracy Landing Overall Male and Female, Nation Male, Nation Female
• Team Accuracy Landing Male and Female.

10th FAI FAI WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP OF JUNIOR FREEFALL STYLE & ACCURACY LANDING

Individual Accuracy Landing

Junior male

The Accuracy Junior Male competition proved interesting with the Romanian Robert Trandafir leading from the start, but dramatically dropping into 5th place after the 5th and final round.

The gold went to Nikitsin Mikita from Belarus, followed by Zharinov Ivan from Russia and Graser Sebastian from Austria.

Full results here.

Junior female

The Junior Female competition was also dramatic with lots of changes after each round. In the end the gold medal went to Russian Fominykh Ksenia, the silver to Krivenko Vlada, also from Russia, with Grill Sophie from Austria closing the podium.

Full results here.

You can also see the results for:

• Freefall Style Junior Male and Junior Female
• Freefall Style and Accuracy Landing Overall Junior Male and Junior Female

And Finally

Congratulations to all the athletes for making the journey in difficult times, for their great performances and sporting spirit.

Check out Episode 2, covering the remaining disciplines at the Tanay Mondial

• WS Performance
• CF 4-way Rotation
• WS Acrobatic
• CF 4-way Sequential
• CF 2-way Sequential
• Freefly
• Freestyle

Episode 2