Tanay Mondial – Episode 2

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The World Championships is now complete in all events

Concentration before a wingsuit performance round
PC Marat Daminov

Following on from Episode 1 here is an update on wingsuit, canopy formations and artistic events.

As they say in football, it was a game of two halves. Competitors at the second week of the Tanay Mondial enjoyed much better weather than those at the first week. It was perfect for the athletes to be able to get into a rhythm, and much more conducive to top performance. The meet finished in just 2 days, much earlier than planned – a rare treat!

Many teams could relax before the closing ceremony on Friday 20 August, enjoying the euphoric post-meet feeling when, win or lose, smashed it or fluffed it, the stress of trying to do your best-ever performance and stay on your game is over. Most of all, competitors could share meet experiences and enjoy the company of the other athletes – rivals yesterday, brothers today.

13th FAI WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP OF ARTISTIC EVENTS

Freefly

Five nations and teams entered freefly. There was never any doubt about the winners. The amazingly synchronised Zion Freefly for Norway – Kristian and Anna Moxnes with Andreas Mosling on camera – led from round 1 and outscored their nearest rivals in every round. It’s a testament to their skill that their throwaway free round score equalled or bettered all the other free round scores. Kristian and Anna celebrated their wedding anniversary on the first day of the competition by making 5 rounds – both so focussed on giving their all that they forgot the date! 😂

Zion had won the 2019 World Cup in Arizona 2019 and received non-stop support from their many fans worldwide. Their killer performance in Russia produced Norway’s first team gold at a World Championships. Respect!

Video – Zion’s Round 2

Norway received their highest score of 8.9 for this compulsory round, in which competitors link four compulsory moves within a routine of their choice

We asked Anna the secret of competition success

Train hard, then train some more, arrive early, and be competition current.”

That said, the French team Skynonymous never allowed Zion to relax, pushing hard on every jump and ending up just 2.1 points behind. Had Zion shown the slightest weakness, these guys were ready to step in and take the gold. Instead, Cyrill Padieu, Clement Passemier and Florian Griell took a well-deserved silver for France, with a beautiful performance. French artistics coach Sébastien Chambet, who had to watch from afar, commented:

They made a great competition, and managed to get the best out of themselves during this championship”

Polaris Freefly Team getting ready to exit
Photo by Lesya

The bronze was fiercely contested between American team Polaris Freefly (Matthew Fry, Katie Hansen, Chad Ross) and the Russians (Dmitry Shlepkin, Andrey Panzhunov, Anton Volgin). The battle for third or fourth can be the hardest one to lose, as it’s the difference between podium or no podium. The Americans had a disastrous compulsory round 5, scoring just 2.2, with a zero for one move but finished the meet in style with a very strong round to clinch the hardware. Italy came fifth with a solid performance throughout – it seemed Dennis Castioni, Stefan Jacob, and Carlotta Sella never stopped smiling. 

Full results here.

[Check out Anna Moxnes on competition headspace.]

Freefly podium
Photo by Marat Daminov

Freestyle

It was a thrilling battle in freestyle between the current world champion Yohann Aby, with a new cameraflyer this year, Jean Marie Gares, fighting for France, and the Americans, Jason Brigmon and Josiah Rich. First blood went to France with a strong free round, but USA responded with an excellent compulsory round to equal the scores. Slowly the French started to pull ahead but it was still anyone’s gold going into the final round. Both teams finished strongly and, in the end, the Frenchies won with 51 points, with USA just behind on 50.4. 

Freestyle round 4 video

Bronze went to Russia with the stunning Anastasia Barannik taking her first World Championship Medal, with Valery Konnov on camera. They displayed very beautiful routines, and were not far behind with 47.7, watch out for this team next time! Denmark came fourth with Emil and Louise Kristensen on 35.5. 

Anastasia Barannik and Valery Konnov preparing to exit during one of the rounds
Photo by Marat Daminov

It was a great result for France. Coach Sébastien Chambet commented at the end:

My first feeling is a satisfaction to get to the end of this competition… A few months before the competition, they were still not sure if they could participate. My second feeling is a great pride in the athletes of this artistic collective, who have kept strong motivation, concentration for the past two years”

Did you know?

France has won every World Championship in Freestyle since 2006.

Full results here.

Freestyle podium
Photo by Marat Daminov

3rd FAI WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP OF WINGSUIT FLYING

Wingsuit Performance Flying

35 wingsuit pilots attended the Performance part of the meet. The competition for the medals was incredibly interesting, with Chris Geiler and Alexey Galda, both from the USA, Dawid Winczewski from Poland and the Russian Dmitry Podoryashy giving their all in pursuit of the title.

Full concentration exit for a wingsuit performance round
Photo by Marat Daminov

In the end Chris Geiler, former world champion in 2016 and silver medalist in 2018 conquered the gold for USA with a total score of 299.1. He dominated the Speed, winning all 3 rounds and won 2 two out of 3 Time rounds. Nicely done, Chris!

The silver medal went to Dawid Winczewski (Poland) who had the best scores in 2 out of 3 distance rounds. His total score was 289.0, more than 10 points behind Chris. The podium was completed in the end by Alexey Galda with 285.9. This was a great result for Alexey, who finished 5th at the 2018 Mondial and 6th in 2016. 

Full results here.

Wingsuit Performance Flying podium
Photo by Marat Daminov

Joe Ridler finished in fifth place, making three out of the top five places for USA, so America easily won the team event. The Russian Federation put up a strong showing with Dmitry Podoryashy in fourth, Andrei Lurosh sixth and Alexander Aksenov seventh, clinching the silver medal. Poland took the bronze with Denmark fourth and Finland fifth. 

Full combined national team results here.

A quick shout-out to Kyle Lobpries of USA, who was just crowned World Champion in Speed at Tanay, and also entered wingsuit performance, coming 11th and showing the range of his talents.

It’s been a wild ride and I’ll continue to enjoy the journey!

Congratulations to every competitor from every nation who made the journey to Mondial 2020 to compete with everything they had to give in the name of goodwill amongst nations, international sportsmanship, and the goodness of humanity

Kyle Lobpries

Wingsuit Acrobatic Flying

Wingsuit Acrobatics was one of the most eagerly-anticipated parts of the competition, with powerful teams making the journey to Tanay. The athletes had trained hard for what proved to be a fierce fight. 

Wingsuit Acrobatics is a relatively new discipline in the World Championship pool, with the first World Cup organized in 2015 in the UK. The competition consists of 4 compulsory rounds and 3 free routine rounds. The compulsory figures are randomly drawn from a dive-pool with a series of loops, rolls, transitions and docks. The free rounds are where teams are invited to impress the judges and fellow wingsuit pilots with their creativity and flying skills.

The favorites from the start were the Swiss team FlyLikeBrick – Jarno Cordia, Jenna Gygi & René Terstegen, a team that has been working together for a long time and it can be said that acro is Jarno’s “baby”. But the battle that took place for the gold medal was out of this world, with the Norwegian team OneCall, Espen Fadnes, Amber Forte and Andreas Hemli, breathing down their necks for the whole duration of the competition.

Actually the Norwegians – flying Freak4s by the way, not a common acro wingsuit – won 4 out of 7 rounds, looking like the stronger team. But an inability to complete the “front flip” maneuver in their larger, higher performance suits meant a severe penalty in round 2, which proved impossible to overcome. The hot debate continues over whether the front flip maneuver should be included in the compulsory dive pool, with countless competitors seeing it as an impediment to the progression of freestyle wingsuit flying. It’s remarkable the Norgies competed at all; Amber had a very serious injury a year ago and has managed to recover and achieve world class flying skills.

Snippet from the free routine – Team FlyLikeBrick

Team FlyLikeBrick emerged victorious in the end with a total score of 2008 points, Team OneCall took the silver with 1970 points and the German team, Venom, took the bronze. Venom is Patrick Kramer, Arvid Endler & Andre Reichel, the first two being Indoor World Champions and the main instructors at Indoor Wingsuit Tunnel in Stockholm. Taking into consideration that Arvid managed to break his ribs some weeks ago we can only say “Chapeau!”. Amazing determination, but we expected nothing less from athletes at this level, if the situation gives you even 1% chance to do it. “Never give up” is a motto we all try to live by! 

Nothing is more rewarding than competing, and seeing all the hard work and energy invested over the last 4 years pay off in such an incredible way

Jenna Gygi, Team FlyLikeBrick

Clips from the free routines – Team OneCall

Congratulations to Team OneCall for setting a new World Record for the Longest Sequence with 35 grips, surpassing the one set in September 2020 by their Swiss opponents Team FlyLikeBrick, of 32 grips.   

🔥 WOW, our airsports community is on fire this week !🔥 Silver medal for Espen Fadnes, Amber Forte, and Andreas Håland Hemli! Thank you for always dreaming big and taking us on the journey with you

Extremsportveko

Huge 👏👏👏 to all the participants for such an extraordinary competition!  

Full results here.

Wingsuit Acrobatic Flying podium
Photo by Marat Daminov

19th FAI WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP OF CANOPY FORMATIONS

CF 4-way Rotations

There were 5 teams in 4-way Rotations, from Qatar, Belarus, the Russian Federation and Romania, their team, Blue Wings, participating for the first time in this category. It was an incredibly tight race at the top between Qatar, Belarus and the Russians with never more than three points separating the teams for the first six rounds of the meet. Belarus threw their gold away by scoring a zero in the penultimate round, as their entire jump was off camera. The pressure was on for the last round, where the Qataris finished in style, extending their lead to take the gold with 151 points to 147 for the Russian Parachute Federation, who took silver. 

Belarus were so strong they stayed on the podium, collecting a world bronze with 135 points and an ’If Only’ feeling. Belarus were flying fast and had the top score in more rounds than the other teams, but picked up four busts (as well as the 0) by pushing the pace.  Qatar and RPF had no busts in the entire meet, so Qatar won by being the fastest clean team – congratulations and respect to Abdulla Hany Al-Raeesi, Ali Hamad Al-Marri, Hassan Ali Al-Malki, Saeed Salem Al-Kuwari and Saleh Salem Al-Kuwari.  It says a lot about the dedication to training of the medallists that the competition was so close.

Full results here.

Canopy formations 4-way Rotations podium
Photo by Marat Daminov

2-way sequential

2-way sequential had a respectable turnout of eight teams, with France, Qatar, RPF and the Czech Republic and Finland sending teams.  It was a landslide victory for France 1, with Alexandra Petitjean, Guillaume Dubois and Renaud Hemon never losing a round. They romped home to their gold with no busts and a score of 243 – meaning they averaged 30.2 points a round!! 

Video – France 1 Round 7 , 31 points scored

It was a similar story for silver and bronze, with Qatar beating France 2 on every round, taking silver with a 27.5 average to France 2’s 24.2. It’s super to see more and more women entering this traditionally male-dominated event, and two on the World Championship podium. 

Full results here.

Canopy formations 2-way Sequential podium
Photo by Marat Daminov

“THE GREATEST, THE WILDEST, THE ONE!”

Andrey Barabash can finally sleep 8 hours per night, even 12 for the nexct few days. But before he went to sleep he was kind enough to send us this message:

Finally it happened! Tanay Mondial was a really long awaited event for us. We prepared for it for almost three years and it was worth it!

We’ve met more than 500 competitors from 31 countries all over the world. Two weeks, two DZs, 7 World Championships in one Mondial. It was a great event. We are happy that everyone was glad to be here and we did all our best to make their stay here comfortable. 

We want to thank all the delegations and competitors, all the judges and jury, all the DZ staff and organizers for making this Mondial warm and unique. The greatest, the wildest, the ONE!”

Patrick de Gayardon Trophy

Andrey and the Russian Parachute Federation can be delighted to receive the Patrick De Gayardon trophy, created in 2003 at the first official Mondial held in France. It is awarded by the FAI/ISC to the nation that wins the most medals at a Mondial. It’s the first time the trophy left France since its creation.

Andrey Barabash receiving the Patrick de Gayardon trophy from Patrice Girardin, former ISC President

The trophy changes hands! It’s moving to think that it’s staying in Russia, but it’s motivating for the future, to go find it one day! Andrey Barabash you can be proud, Russia deserved it

Patrice Girardin

THE FUTURE

The next World Championships will be held in Eloy in October 2022. 

Normally there are two years between WCs, but because 2020 was postponed till 2021, this restores the normal schedule. It also means perhaps the teams that were not able to compete this year have a chance to compete at a World Championships without waiting too long. Our hearts go out to all the teams, coaches and supporters who have prepared so long and so hard for this event, in vain. Surely it is better to compete and fail to achieve your goal than not to be able to enter the playing field. We really hope you will keep training and come back stronger.  

The World Championships end, let the training begin!
Photo by Marat Daminov

You can check out Tanay Episode 1 here

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Meet: Lesley Gale

Lesley has been in love with skydiving for 35 years. She is a multiple world and national record holder and a coach on 20 successful record events worldwide. She has over 100 competition medals spanning more than 25 years and has been on the British 8-way National team at World events. She started Skydive Mag to spread knowledge, information and passion about our amazing sport.
Lesley is delighted to be sponsored by Performance Designs, Sun Path, Cypres, Cookie, Symbiosis suits and Larsen & Brusgaard

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