The final Saturday of King of Swoop dawned sunny and clear, despite poor forecasts. The beach looked even more like a festival today, with market stalls lining the whole length of the beach. The final of Zone Accuracy was held in the morning… and then the grand finale was planned for 7pm, for the maximum crowds.
King of Airshows
Aerial displays were arranged to keep the crowd entertained, informed and excited about the possibilities of body and canopy flight…
PD Factory Team Display
A six canopy display was put on for the crowd by the PD Factory team. Pablo, Gage, JuJu, Jessica and Ian Bobo were joined by Shannon Pilcher, course director and ex factory team member, putting in a guest appearance. Shannon was King of Swoop in 2005, the last time this event was run. Spectators had all eyes skywards to see the 3-canopy formation flying and landing. I was ‘blending in’ with the crowd and it was really interesting to see how captivated and knowledgable they had become over the few days of the competition. All faces were glued to the pilots, and these 3-person landing were truly impressive. It is so hard to convey the excitement and drama of freefall, even with a ground to air camera.. but when spectators see canopies landing like this the skill involved is obvious.
JetMan and Catalonian Flag
Once again Richie Pym jumped the giant flag of Catalonia, as big as a hangar, bringing it to land on the beach. This gave the crowd a focal point to look at so when the Jetman began [Vincent Reffet in disguise], the closing speed relative to the flag was obviously impressive.
Beach Tandems
Tandem jumpers were landing on the beach, onto a cross. Some of them were the lucky winners of the draw from the previous day. Tandem instructor Santi Corella hit the cross every single time, this undoubtedly impressed the spectators with the show of skill. The tandem students were interviewed by Regan when they got to the ground, another example of clever marketing.
Soul flyer
Fred Fugen made a solo display in his wingsuit, carving round in a circle while wearing smoke, and then traversing the length of the beach before opening exactly overhead the competition site. Not being rude but this wouldn’t have struck me as being the most fascinating of displays .. but that’s where you have to learn to think like the public. they absolutely loved it! Mainly as they could see Fred very clearly and be impressed by his rate of travel… and most especially because he brought the drama of the opening of the parachute to vertically overhead the spectators, every single eye was on his deployment, with an audible sigh of relief when (of course) his canopy opened perfectly
Sportsmanship
One thing I really enjoyed was seeing the evident camaraderie between competitors, many of whom are on the same competitive or demonstration team, even though here they are rivals. I felt proud that our athletes were showing such sportsmanship, with high fives, hugs and congratulations to each other on landing, and then staying to watch other rounds, as a mark of respect. An excellent contrast to many mainstream sports that are riddled with cheating, diving and underhand tactics.
Crowd
One of the aims of King of Swoop was to bring our sport to the public as Meet Director Reinier explained earlier. It was brilliant to see kids swarming round the swoopers for them to autograph their King of Swoop posters, and have their photo taken with their hero. You can’t measure this sort of marketing for our sport but my estimation is: ‘massive’.
King of Swoop Final
The final of 12 rounds of competition would determine who was the true King of Swoop. This truly is an apt name for the winner of this competition, which means holding your nerve across 12 rounds of the hardest course ever. The best crowd yet had gathered for the final, encouraged by Regan’s mounting excitement, and the build-up of the airshow.
Conditions were brilliant for the final round, with very little wind. Jessica described the atmosphere in the Otter as ‘very focussed’. World Champion Curt Bartholomew had a brilliant run, to much applause from the crowd, high fives from the other competitors and a kiss from his bad-ass wife Jeannie. Pablo Hernandez also had a terrific run to finish. Wuzi Wagner’s elegant run was not enough to challenge the current leader Nicholas Batsch. There was never much doubt really, as the world distance record holder and established King of Distance made a 720 followed by easily the longest run, proving he is a worthy King of Swoop 2014. Nick described this as ‘my best competition ever .. the hardest course, the most time between rounds, the best crowd, I feel amazing’
Results King of Swoop
1 King of Swoop 2014 – Nicholas Batsch (USA), wins 11,000 euros
2 Wuzi Wagner (Austria) 7,000 euros
3 Pablo Hernandez (Spain) 5,000 euros
4 Ian Bobo (USA) 2,000 euros
5 Julien Guiho (France) 1,800 euros
6 Dominic Rothmair (Austria), 1,600 euros
7 Curt Bartholomew (USA) 1,300 euros
8 Guillaume Bernier (France) 1,200 euros
9 Brice Bernier (France) 1,100 euros
10 Thomas Delibac (USA) 1,000 euros
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