It’s unusual to do five competition jumps in a single discipline at a world event, so the 8-way skydivers are happy. A World Record was set by the Knights in round 2. UAE had a great round 4, scoring 14 on a technical draw, 14, O, 5 (open a … ) … equalling the Russian 8, who are launching some interesting pieces out the door. France scored a 15 and seemed to be going as fast as it was possible.. until the Americans stamped their mark of authority with an incredible 19, the 20th point just out. France has a team with 5 very experienced flyers and 3 that are newer to the game.
We asked Craig Girard, player-coach of UAE 8-way how it was going…“I’m stoked! We’re totally clean, no busts at all. We’re beating Qatar and it was a different story at the tunnel comp [Clash of Champions]. These guys are killing it, they are superstars right now, I can’t believe how well they are doing with how little they know”
The jumps are very technical. Qatar had a couple of busts in the first 3 rounds and a disastrous round 4, with a spectacular funnel. It’s an interesting draw that is heavy on the randoms. An all-random jump led to the world record, which Justin ‘Biz’ Blewitt of the Knights said he would never have dreamed would be the case. Round 5 is 9, C, J, H and round 7 is Q, 17, E, A.. so all the remaining rounds are 3 blocks or 2 blocks and a random. The final round 10 is “a lemon of a jump” said Gary Smith, coach for Qatar and Hayabusa. The puzzle is 8, 11, 2. (frisbee-frisbee, norwegian box-norwegian donut, swiss bear-swiss bear). The 11 swaps everyone with their piece partner, and the 2 and 8 are very technical blocks with 3-way pieces, not ones you want do in your B slot, never mind everyone in B slots. Round 9 has the potential for a world record, the puzzle is 12, 16, 1. “The tricky part will be to keep the 12s tight” said Biz. It would be truly awesome if the Golden Knights could break their own record again in the same meet. They have never been in such form. Could we see another world record or even a world record average coming up too? Go Knights!
#The Speeders
There are 15 competitors in speed, from eight different nations. A newcomer to the scene, Dmitry Gmyzin, made two personal bests, of 510 and 530 km/h… Dmitry’s first international competition was the recent World Cup in Teuge, in September, and he previously had not scored over 500 Km/h. People were wondering if he could oust the current world champion, Marco Wiederkehr. The speed comes with a price though, after 5 rounds Dmitry had 3 OBs (out of bounds), where the two ProTracks differ by too much for the result to be counted. It looks from the speed graphs (that you can see if you click on the rounds in the scoreboard) as if he is not perfectly upright and therefore has lateral speed, causing a variance in the Pro-Track readings. Therefore, he is now effectively out of the competition, as he does not have enough registered scores even to make the final. This is a shame since he is one of only three competitors to break the 500Km’h mark. The other two are both Swiss, Marko Wiederkehr and Christian Labhart, and are in first and second place respectively, after 5 rounds. UK’s Mikey Lovemore, who won the BPA’s Skydiver of the Year 2015 award, is enjoying a spell in the limelight in third – he is on form!
Here is how the places are calculated:
Rounds 1 & 2 – best jump
Round 3 – sum of the best 2 jumps
Rounds 4 & 5 – sum of the best 3 jumps
Rounds 6 – 8 – sum of the best 4 jumps
