12/08/13 Bankaluka, BiH

Day -2, Banjaluka

Two days to go before the official Opening of the European Championships and World Cup’s in Artisitic Events and Formation Skydiving in a HOT Banjaluka.

Today is the meeting and greeting day – officially for the judges and the teams are arriving ready for official practice tomorrow.

Some teams have arrived early and are taking advantage of the training possibilities offered by the organisation. Speaking to the UK Free Fly Team “Varial” Steve and Peter they talked about the problem the teams were having with the change of aircraft. The Porter has the door on the opposite side from the one they had trained on – and there is no step for the cameraflyer. At least all the teams have the same problem.

When IPC held the Plenary meeting in Banjaluka January they were promised a new building with good rooms for the judges and organisation.  Today it was in full use as everyone made the final preparations for the competitions to start on the 14th August 2013.

The Judging and Scoring system is provided by OmniSkore! HD - the new system developed by Ted Wagner and he and his brother Tim are here to oversee its installation and operation.  They will be linking the judging and scoring system to the IPC world competitions Results page and so all the results will be "live" as they happen - these are "unofficial" until ultimately signed off by the Chief Judge.

There should be plenty of "on line" stuff with us, OmniSkore and Kurt of NSL providing coverage.  Our ability to upload to IPC YouTube page actual jumps as we did for Saarlouis and Dubai may be limited by our internet connection.

Lost luggage is always a risk with airline travel.  Two stories so far; Rina Gallo, Jury member kept up her lost luggage record - (last 3 World Championships) her luggage  did not make it out of Canada yet again!  Worse though for USA 4-Way Female cameraflyer - all her luggage including rig, camera etc. still has not arrived in Bosnia - 3 days after her arrival.  The team have not been able to do any training jumps.

17.00 - A change of the programme for the morning - 8.00 a.m. start for training jumps tomorrow - not 12.00 as previously scheduled.