The last day of the World Championships in Prostejov was eventful, emotional and high drama.

8-way

Two protests were put in for round 4 of the 8-way, from USA and Canada. The Turbolets have a step that the front floater rests a foot on – or in the Knights’ case, two feet. The Americans protested that their Point had lost his footing due to the non-slip surface on this step being slippy, and in fact ripping completely off.

This was denied by the Jury, on inspecting the surface in question. The Canadians protested that their airspeed was higher than the competition limits, as indicated by an airspeed indicator at the back of the plane. The Jury sent the Meet Director up in the plane to video both airspeed indicators; the one in the cockpit (which is calibrated as a flight instrument) and the one in rear used in the protest, and found a discrepancy of 20Km/h. They therefore denied the protest.

Round 6

8, J, 16 – the French had a disastrous round, the newness of the team showing up for the first time, like a blister in new shoes. They have a very funky exit with a low-hanging floater behind the centre floater… who did a bit of unintentional freestyle on exit followed by a hard dock, not the best start to a jump. As so often happens, other areas deteriorated and a brain lock led to an early key followed by some more brain locks for good measure.

Round 8

Interesting puzzle (22-20-15) since all three blocks swap some (different) people with their piece partners. The Netherlands and UK opted for a swing move and tied the round with 15. No such nambying around for the French who went for the shortest moves and flew like men possessed to score a 19. Surprisingly the Russians opted for the swing move and still squeezed a 19 out of the dive. Last up, the Golden Knights showed their mastery of this event, looking efficient, clean and agile to stamp a 26 on the board. The Knights won the last World Championships in 2012 and have lifted their game since then, now looking incredibly sharp, strong and confident, it is a joy to watch.

The French 8-way is a new team of youngsters with just a couple staying from last year’s line-up, and including a female for the first time in history. They have changed their style since 2012, realising how USA beat them by (amongst other things) building smaller formations; they responded to this by adopting this approach too. They have a long way to go as this is such a young team. It takes a long time to build a team, most especially in 8-way and it will be interesting to watch them mature. After Round 9 the French were just 3 points behind the Russians. The judging sheets showed Russia with zero busts and the French losing 3 points in round 6, with an exit funnel and confusion following. This is the sort of compounded mistake that more experience will eliminate. One of the qualities that shows a hardened competitor is the ability to keep calm when the dive does not go according to plan. The Americans call this, ‘pressing the reset button’, the French just say ‘stay cool’!

Round 10

USA’s Golden Knights finished the meet in style with a winning the gold easily, some 45 points ahead of nearest rivals. They won every round convincingly and were in a league of their own. The French in third place going into the last round scored a confident 16, surely not enough to catch up 3 points on the Russians… but then the Russians blew their exit and didn’t have a great dive… scoring only 13, making a jump-off! How exciting!

Behind them a friendly but fierce battle had been going on between the Netherlands and GB for the fourth place position, going round for round between the evenly matched teams. M8trix is a relatively young team, beginning about 4 years ago led by the everlasting wonder that is Gary Smith. UK’s team, Microclim8, couldn’t be described as ‘relatively young’, with more grey than a rainy day in Manchester… but they are very accomplished competitors who have brought in younger better looking (female) team members, trained hard the last couple of years and re-invented themselves as a result. Eventually a 1-point difference on the last round put the Brits in fourth with a 13.1 average, nice one! The Australians skydived exceptionally for a team just formed in February, ending with a 12.3 average. UAE lost half of their 8-way team last year and, like the French, are rebuilding their team from the bottom up, so I’m sure we’ll see them return to form next year. Their skydiving was generally good but peppered with schoolboy errors.

On to the jump-off .. what a sketch! The draw was Q, 10, N, L, so virtually a random dive. The French made a spectacular skydive. It was textbook in every way; lovely shaped formations, visibly taking a tad longer on the keys and made a squeaky clean 19. In Craig Girard’s words, “that was a fabulous skydive”. Next were the Russians .. who scored a 20 that surely by any rational assessment would have been bust to a 19 to equal the French score. If this alternative reality would have taken place the silver would have gone to the team that scored their 19th point first. (This rule for a tie-breaker changed last year)

Why should the Russians have bust? One of their guys did not complete a 540 in the 10 (donut – donut). He turned a 360 one way (the opposite direction to the remaining 7), realised his error then turned back 180 in the other direction! Thus clearly not completing a 540 manoeuvre in relation to the other persons, as required by the block. It’s true that the person can turn in any direction, so if he would have completed his turn the opposite way to the other people, then it could have been awarded the point, even though the dive was not as planned. But, if you change direction during the turn then you’re not completing the rotation. The obvious corollary to this is a 360 degree turn, where clearly if you make a 180 left and a 180 right, it cannot be considered a 360 as that would require the judges to assess the precise degree of turn with a protractor. Bizarrely the judges replayed this video at 70 per cent speed numerous times, apparently looking at this error but ruled it was okay. The French was robbed! But, it is what it is; like an offside call in football or a line judge in tennis, judges make mistakes (just as competitors do) and that’s all part of the process.

4-way Female

Last night the French ladies rejumped round 8 with an even better result, scoring 17 (to yesterday’s 16 bust to 8 for not being visible in the cloud). Today, the female Golden Knights had pressed their reset button after a bad day yesterday and skydived their asses off; fast, strong, confident jumps, equalling the French on both the last two rounds. But the damage was already done and the French regain their World Champion title, with a 21.4 average, an impressive 10 points ahead. Silver medals went to the Golden Knights (20.4 ave) and bronze to Great Britain, with a 16.1 average. This was lower than Kaizen’s goal but still clearly deserving their medal being 14 points ahead of Canada. It’s to be hoped the Canadian ladies team stays together because to score a 14.7 average with an 18-year old inexperienced jumper on the team shows golden promise. So too for the Belgian ladies who on the whole skydived calmly, confidently and with good technique. They just had a bad round and found it hard to get back on track. More competition experience will help this, Les Stunts, keep doing what you’re doing because you’re amazing, especially as a weekend team packing for yourselves.

You couldn’t replicate that jump. The Canadians destroyed that skydive!

4-way Open

Hayabusa elected to turn down their offered rejump for losing a point in cloud, Dennis saying “It wasn’t the sort of jump you wanted to do twice”. This leaves the Canadians the clear winner of round 8 with an incredible jump. As Craig Girard said, “You couldn’t replicate that jump. They destroyed that skydive”

I’ve never seen so much crazy fucked-up shit happening at a World Meet in my entire skydiving career

Crazy stuff

This was a bizarre World Championships with a lot of funky stuff going on. It’s unusual at this level to see a funnel, contact with the camera flyer, or brain locks that turn to complete meltdown but we saw truckloads of this weird shit. In round 7 of VFS, Canada had a total meltdown and were staring at each other for two thirds of the jump, somehow salvaging a 16 points at the bottom end. In round 8 the French 4-way built their own particular version of an H (bow) every single page! In round 9, the competent Germans (running on a 17.5 average) had a funnel and crazy rebuild, losing over 20 seconds of their skydive and scoring a 7 ! This catapulted the UAE team into the final, also moved the Brits from 8th to 7th, as they were sat drinking beer. John McIver said “I think I’ll have another beer, if I drink enough I might make it into third”.

Final Round

With all this madness going on, who knew what would happen? 13, B, 9 made it a fast round. The Canadians ripped up another jump going balls to the walls, lost the first point on the hill and scored a 27. They will stand on the podium and take the bronze medal for Canada. The Lemay brothers will collect a well-deserved bronze in VFS too. This is the first time anyone has competed in 4-way FS and 4-way VFS at an international competition, never mind winning medals in both events. Be proud!

There’s life in the old dog yet

Airspeed didn’t hold back, directing their emotions into flying fast and furiously, scoring a 29. Last up, the Belgians were on fire, spinning like tornados. They didn’t run over the finish line, they annihilated it! Also scoring 29 to finish on top with a 26.4 average, 11 points ahead of the previous World Champions. They knew when they landed that they had finally achieved their dream. For 12 years this team has worked their butts off in pursuit of this goal, never giving up and making a lot of sacrifices. Living out of suitcases, missing their family, friends and loved ones, training so hard it drained their energy .. winning tunnel competitions and World Cups along the way but until now never quite making the World Championship summit. Last time in 2012 they lost by one point, now the boys had done it and the whole drop zone was elated. Their reception on landing after the last jump was incredible. Shouting, cheering, clapping by the other competitors and supporters. Airspeed were as gracious in defeat as they are in victory, congratulating Hayabusa with genuine pleasure for their achievement and respect at how long the guys have been plugging away.

It was very emotional. Every one of Hayabusa had tears in their eyes at the final realisation of their dream. This set everyone else off and soon the tears were flowing like champagne at a wedding. The Belgian delegation called a party to celebrate their success, so proud of their hard-working rock star World Champions. The whole drop zone was overjoyed for Roy Janssen, Dennis Praet, David Grauwels, Andy Grauwels and Danny Jacobs. They skydive with their hearts, minds and souls, giving everything they had to finally take the Excalibur for Belgium.

Next World Championships article, Speed Skydiving, by Mikey Lovemore

Previous World Championships article (by Lesley)

Fifth World Championships article (by Lesley)

Fourth World Championships article (by Lesley)

Third World Championships article (by Joel)

Second World Championships article (by Lesley)

First World Championships article (by Joel)

World Championships website for day videos and info

Check the full scores on Omniskore

Excalibur image below by Luc Van Britsom

See more fantastic images by Willy Boeykens at the Vigil AAD Facebook page