8th European and 5th Junior European Freefall Style & Accuracy Landing Championships: Final Day
Their smiles reflect the entire Championships!
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Christoph Zahler (GER) and Alessandro Binello (ITA) (above), about to make their Round 8 Junior Male accuracy jumps, epitomise the spirit of the Championships - enthusiasm, comradeship, determination and pride.
The award ceremony for Team Accuracy took place yesterday at the end of the day with the presentation of the medals and trophies. Congratulations to the European Team Accuracy Champions of Slovenia (Male) and Russia (Female).
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The Championships are now in their final stages, having completed Freefall Style and Team Accuracy, each having had their respective award ceremonies. Today's jumps will be for the semi-final and final rounds and there's quite a buzz in the air - and it's not just the wasps.
The Manifest girls worked well to get all the outstanding rounds completed by lunchtime, ahead of the familiar winds that usually make their presence felt about this time. At the end of Round 10 in the Junior Male accuracy we had Christoph Zahler (GER) and Ondrej Zak (CZE) tied in joint 2nd position and a jump off followed, resulting in Christoph being placed 2nd and Ondrej in 3rd place. With the final calculations made, Anton Sayevich (BLR) and Christoph Zahler (GER) were declared joint Champions in Junior Male Overall and would share the podium position.
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Ondrej Zak (L) and Christoph Zahler (R) about to make their final jump of the competition, a jump-off round to determine 2nd and 3rd placings.
Russia's Dmitrii Maksimov secured his 1st place podium position with a DC in the final round and within minutes his fellow jumpers were gathering around to honour him with a high-five lineup.
With the competition over we were treated to a display by the new Europeans Champions, much to the delight of the many visitors that had gathered on the airfield. By 13.30hrs the buses were heading back into town to enable people to get some R and R and ready themselves for the last of the awards presentations, closing ceremony and final gala dinner later that evening on the DZ.
A few statistics for the numerators out there: We had a total of 100 senior competitors, 64 males, 36 females. The juniors totalled 21, 15 of whom were males. A total of 238 style jumps were made with no rejumps; 1,609 accuracy jumps with 5 re-jumps. There were no protests lodged, nor any reserve deployments, but we did have one landing injury necessitating withdrawal from the competition.
Elena Laktionova (RUS) nursing her injured shoulder, forced to retire after a bad landing on her 5th style round.
The final presentation of medals and trophies took place just before sunset, (Photos on Flickr ), followed by an alfresco dinner with live entertainment, including two girl singers, a contemporary dance troupe and a fabulous traditional brass band - with a repertoire for all dance modes! Several renditions of Boney M's 'Brown Girl in the Ring' were heard across the DZ - haven't fathomed that one out yet.
Meet Director Angel Staminov, assisted by his wife Ani, presented their own 'thank you' gifts to the many sponsors and helpers who had contributed to the enormous success of the Championships.
All in all, a highly succesful and memorabale Championships, well and truly putting Erden on the FCE map.
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