SiriusFly

4WDTeam… and entering 2WD as Finn Fly, with Pekka and Timmo

Inka Tiitto FINLAND

• 27 years old
• Dance competitor in the past now is a professional coach
• +650 hours tunnel time
• 600 jumps
• Second Place at Dynamic 2 way at Charlewars 2014

Markku Tolvi, FINLAND

• 36 years old
• +500 hours tunnel time
• +2000 jumps
• Started skydiving 2004
• 2 times Gold at Finnish Nationals with team Angry Birds 2011/2012, and competed in Dubai World Championships 2013

Pekka Lavila, FINLAND

• 35 years old
• +300 hours tunnel time
• +1300 jumps
• Started Skydiving in 2005
• Competed at Bodyflight World Challenge 2012

Kimmo Vaahteranoksa FINLAND

• 35 years old
• +400 hours tunnel time
• +2800 jumps
• Started Skydiving in 2001
• Competing at Bodyflight World Challenge 2012

Their sponsors are Sirius Sports Resort and Boogieman.

How long have you been training for this competition?

Inka: One month for me since I joined, but the rest of the team have been training all year since January. I joined the team at the last competition, Charlewars.

## Wow! How did that happen?

One of their team members was injured during a front layout in training for the competition. So I stepped in and did a very little training and straight into the competition.

So a baptism of fire! How did you know how to fly in a 4WD team?

Inka: I had to learn really really fast!

How much preparation have you done for the meet?

Kimme: In Windoor, 2 hours. But we train at home in Finland, at the Sirius Sport Resort. It’s a big complex with lots of cool sports, like a flow-rider for indoor suring, and a race track.

What are your goals for the meet?

Kimme: Just to have fun!

Pekka: We are also training our headspace for competition – to get used to competing. A little bit of competition pressure is good. We want to fly like we do in training.

Markku: We want to fly clean rounds

How is this competition different from others?

Inka: The dive pool is little bit different from other competitions as it’s huge. You can pull out over 500 combinations from the dive pool. So it’s a lot more challenging. It’s impossible for us to train all those combinations, so we have to try and find some logic over all the transitions that we can take into the meet.

How is the bigger dive pool going to affect your flying?

Inka: It’s good that you can’t train it all but it means there is way more brainwork – the likelihood that we fly something we’ve done before is really small. We have to look out for each other all the time and really concentrate hard on finding each other and staying precise. We can’t just get in the tunnel and hope for the best! That’s just not going to work!

Markku: We have to slow ourselves down a little rather than flying as fast as we can. A few moves are really difficult so it’s more important to be clean than to be fast.

Pekka: We have to slow down and then our brains can keep up!

So, Kimme and Pekka, you are entering the 2WD also as Finn Factor, why is that?

Kimme: It was free!

Pekka: Of course that is nice but it’s also competition training for the 4WD, as the routines are the same.

Kimme: It’s also to have fun, they the name Finn Factor is wrong; it should be FUNN Factor!

How much training did you do for the 2WD?

We planned our free routine yesterday and flew one hour! We didn’t train the 2-way compulsories at all, because they are the same as the 4-way.

Markku and Inka, why are you not entering the 2WD also for training?

Inka: I have an injured shoulder so I’m not flying more competition rounds than I have to.
Kimme: – The fourth person is the rogue slot!

Is 4WD always so brutal? There seem to be a lot of injuries.

Kimme: Well there is not so much space in the tunnel and the walls are hard

Inka: So are Kimme’s feet!

Pekka: It’s super hot and we’re all flying very hard, so it’s the most extreme – it’s exhausting and that’s when you make mistakes, when you’re tired.

What do you think about being part of the Extreme Games?

Kimme: Well it’s amazing but we don’t get to see any of the other sports, they are in Barcelona!

Inka: It’s really really cool that somebody is combining these sports together. And an amazing thing for our sport that’s it’s being included in the Games. With more and more tunnels appearing all over the world, we have or lots more first time flyers. It’s cool that skydiving is being brought up to bigger audience now. Hopefully it will be super good for the sport and help it to grow.

What’s next for the team?

Inka: The guys are taking a rest but I will be at World war XP with a different team. It’s a new one, all girls, and we’ll be the shortest 4WD team as I am the tallest person on it! The other flyers are Cathy and Ninie Bouette and Maja from Poland, who is only 15.

How do you like Windoor tunnel?

Markku: It’s super. Really good to fly in, the air is good and it’s the latest technology

Inka: I live in Empuriabrava, it’s my home tunnel, it’s a cool place and always has a good atmosphere. It’s great that it’s so close to the dropzone, you can fly in the morning and jump in the afternoon. It’s a very nice layout for the tunnel, in the center of the restaurant, and there’s usually a really good audience, which makes it fun.

Pekka: It’s very hot!

Inka: It’s not normally so hot here, it’s just that all the teams are flying with a lot of power.

Vania: It’s just because Inke is so hot! 😉