##Round 4 – The burner!
ACM had a good round, Aaron right on the edge but keeping up in style, and scoring a 24. Pineapple Jesus had a burner, scoring 23, outrageous for a team that has barely trained this year. Still they are perfectionists, Joel commented they scored a 23, Georgina’s response? “Oh I thought we did better than that” !
Phoenix raised their game and also scored 24, perhaps being a little lucky in not busting, where other teams lost a couple of points to similar looking offences. 4Mula had a glitch at the top of their dive, losing a point and the flow of the dive. They dug in and salvaged a 24 but had been looking to extend their lead with this kind of dive.
Eclipse have hardly trained this year but been together for 8 years has its advantages, they scored a 23 with a great skydive. Vision 99 have been skydiving beautifully, their set-ups, catches and random work are very precise. In most of the rounds they don’t look as fast as their rivals because they are not visibly racing, yet they make the same score. Their superior flying and precision was confirmed in this round, when they romped through the points to finish on 28, with a very excited Pete Mather leaping up, fist in the air with triumph. Well deserved!
Satori XL stamped their authority over the field with a blistering skydive that scored 33 and brought the house down when we watched the judging. This single round says it all, with XL’s 33 some light years ahead of the rest. Milko commented that they had found their pace now, saying the beginning of the meet they were a little too cautious.
A very welcome visiting team are Lupus Est, the Estonian Nationals team, who have been together quite a few years. There are no Estonian Nationals as there are not enough skydivers, so they came to the UK Nationals with a specific goal, to set a new Estonian Record for the highest score in a round. Previously they have set a 14, in Dubai at DIPC. They need an FAI sanctioned competition for the record to be official; they actually set a record at ESL finals but that does not count since it’s not an FAI recognised event. Happily Lupus achieved their goal, with a 17 on round 4, a new Estonian record! Congratulations to Estonia!
Now the scores are going to go downhill for a bit said Milko, with the fastest remaining 3 dives at the end of the competition… so the teams have to hold their nerve and not destroy themselves meantime. The fight is on between the pack of wolves behind Satori, all nipping at each other’s heels. “It’s about who’s going to crack” said Dave Head, Satori’s cameraman.
The weather is glorious, blue skies, sunshine and pleasantly hot. The pace of the meet is furious, with planes going up and down like a dumb waiter at the Savoy. One person is doing two teams (AAA and AA) and has made 11 competition jumps by 4 o’clock. Fair play! Not everyone can stand the heat though: “I’m kind of hoping some weather comes in so I can have a break”, said Ash Kemp of Blackhawk. No chance mate, we’re skydiving hard till the last lumen of daylight.
