1st FAI WISC, Prague, Czech Republic, 21-24 October 2015 - 1st Day

Friday 23rd October, Day 1 of competition

The following links will take you to the Video created from Day 1 Training and Registration Day  and the Live Streaming of the flying:

Entering the Tunnel

20.40 pm

With a 7.00 am start in the morning the decision of the FS judges is to complete all the rounds flown today, so we are still working at the tunnel on the one VFS round flown but yet to be judged.   As for the Artistic/Dynamic judges they will be leaving here very late I think.  Still it is FS that has the 7.00 am start. 

The results from the 4 rounds of Freestyle that have been flown are now posted and include the Compulsory round:  For the Seniors Finland is in first place with 34.7, Norway second with 34.3 and Russia third with 33.9.  For the Juniors there is no change - Poland 1, 1st with 35.7, Poland 2, 2nd with 32.5 and France 3rd with 29.0.

The published programme for tomorrow has been changed to catch up on the problems with the 1st round today.

We are waiting for the last jump in round 7 for VFS to be judged, it is 21.10.  At the end of round 4 we have  Russia in first with 97 points, France 3 points behind on 94 a big gap then to the UAE with 83 who are being chased by Poland with 82.

19.45 pm

I really enjoyed watching the Dynamic flying - this is really flying using all dimensions it is exciting and really difficult, although with all skilled athletes they make the difficult look so easy - but it is FAST.  These first rounds are Pool rounds and I am sure the results will be up soon.  Not quite like the Rugby World Cup but I guess there is as much riding on it for the competitors.

The FS judges have not been let out of the judging room, just fed sweeties every now and then.  Not true really, they and the staff here are doing an excellent job and catching up.  We now have the results for Rounds 6 in Female and Open - Open Belgium is so far ahead it is unreal they are on 196 points, Russia is second on 170 and France third with 166.  Qatar are only 3 points behind though on 163.  For the Females the lead is still the USA on 187 with France second 156 and Great Britain 3rd with 146.

Round 7 is being judged as I write and that is the end of the Formation Skydiving 4 Way Open and Female for today.  VFS has one more round to be judged - it is slower to upload the jumps for judging due to the use of the top camera.  It has been a long day for everyone.  At the end of round 7 the Females are USA 215, France 181 and Great Britain 168 - however in the Open category there is a change, Belgium continues to dominate with another 30 point skydive giving them a total after 7 rounds of 226, Russia with 198, and Qatar 3rd with 191 and France in 4th place with 190.  In that last round they got 2 busts, one for incomplete formation and one for incomplete separation.  Tomorrow will be the last round before the cut off so it will be interesting to see how this affects those that are around the 10th place - only the top 10 will go through to the semi-final.  At the moment Finland are in 9th place with 152, South Africa in 10th with 148 and Denmark in 11th with 143.  There are only 9 teams in the 4-Way Female so they should all go into the semi-final.  The second cut at the end of the 9th round is the top 6 teams go into the final round.. 

17.44 pm 

Dynamics are now flying so a quick update before I go to the tunnel viewing area.  Freestyle round 4 has been judged but still awaiting rd 2 results - currently Finland on 26.7, Norway on 26.0 and Czech Republic on 25.6.  The same position for the Junior competition - Poland 1 27.5, Poland 2 25.0 and France 20.9.  In Formation Skydiving Female round 5 is judged  USA 147, France 125 and Great Britain 115.  The judges are in the middle of judging Rd. 5 4-Way Open.

17.10 pm

Round 4 4-Way Open has now been judged, Belgium still well ahead on 132 - France and Russia both on 108 and Qatar on 105, they took 2 busts in that round for failing to show separation

.16.40 pm

The 4th round of FS Female is now judged - USA 125, France 101 and Great Britain 95.  The judges are working hard to catch up after the problems this morning - the teams are flying round 7!    

16.04 pm

All three rounds of VFS have now been judged and we have a battle between Russia on 75 points and France on 74 - watch this space!  UAE are on 70 - but there is a mid-field battle between Great Britain, the Czech Republic, Belgium and Switzerland where only two points separate them.  After 3 rounds in 4-Way open Belgium have a commanding lead with 89 points but there is competition between 2,3 and 4 with Russia 74, Qatar 72 and France 71,  Could Qatar's new French coach be having an influence already?

For the Artistics Events - Free style has been judged on the 3rd round, but the 2nd round (compulsories) is still being judged.  At the moment Finland is in first place with 17.5, Norway close behind on 17.4 and the Czech Republic with 17.1 - but this could all change when the Round 2 results are posted.  The Junior Freestyle is Poland 1 and 2 with 18.3 and 16.6 and France third with 14.3 again waiting for the Round 2 results.

15.02 pm

The first round of VFS has been judged and Russia are leading the field with 27 points, France in second place with 22, UAE 3rd, 21 and Poland 4th, 20 - the judges are currently on round 2 so it may well be interesting to see how this competition is going to develop.

DYNAMICS - a new discipline in the formal FAI/IPC calendar - their competition will commence at 5.00 p.m. this afternoon.  Both 4 Way and 2 Way.  I spoke to the Dynamic judges here to judge this 1st ever World Championships to learn more about the event itself, its roots and development.  It really is a "Tunnel" event almost in the way that Freefly is an "exterior" event which was demonstrated at the low attendance at the first World Cup in Indoor Skydiving held in Austin, Texas last year.

It has grown from fun flying between two tunnel "rats" in chasing each other round the tunnel, developing moves and increasing the moves as the skills grew - so friends joined in and three was OK but four really did not work, and so the idea was formed to split the tunnel into two and fly on each side of the divide.  As more flyers saw and heard it spread through the community and so a meeting was held to discuss the moves and what could be done to develop it as a competitive discipline with structure, rules and a dive pool.  This all happened over about 5 years and the first battle competition took place in Germany in 2012.  At that time for 4-way only, but the following year in Spain 2-way was added as a stepping stone for skill development and became part of the competition calendar.  

There are other competition formats within the community but for this 1st FAI/IPC event it was decided to go for the "Battle" format.  This involves a knockout format between teams, and it could be the luck of the draw, but the opening rounds are evaluation and training (3 rounds) and the last 3 rounds are tournament rounds leading to the Final rounds where places are decided.  It is a very different competition format to those we are used to for all our other disciplines - but makes for an audience friendly and involving competition.  Teams come back for more and they seem to like and accept this format. 

In addition, it is judged live by the competitors' peers.  The community feel it cannot be judged by those who have not flown the moves and really understand the complexity and skill involved.  The judges come from those established in the community who have worked towards formalising this form of flying into a structured competition;  it is still developing in much the same way Formation Skydiving did in the early days of Sequential Relative Work and Vertical Formation Skydiving still is today.  The other big difference from other disciplines is that it is judged "Live" so a judge has to make a decision quickly.   Other sports work in the same way, skating, diving, gymnastics come to mind.  The flyers are prepared to accept this and the number of teams registered for this competiton is confirmation of that.

Since acceptance by the IPC Plenary in February of this year, a great deal of hard work has been done within the Dynamic and Artistics community to formalise the rules in a way that is acceptable and in line with the other IPC disciplines.  I am sure the tunnel willl be packed with spectators from 5.00 onwards - bearing in mind that they will be flying until 10.40 this evening.

Thank you to Adam Mattacola, Chris Dixon and Andrew Sutton (Judges)  for bringing this discipline to our family and also for explaining it to me with such enthusiasm and passion.

Sarka Blaskova - Meet Manager - Fantastic Organiser

14.24 pm

All the Female teams have jumped round 3 and been judged and the gaps are widening:  USA 1st 82 points. France 2nd 68 points and Great Britain 3rd with 65 points and the home team are in fourth with 59 points.  We are still waiting for round three 4-Way Open and the VFS rounds 1 and 2.  The pace here is hot.

The Junior 4-Way which is being run as a Demonstration Event (because we only have two teams) both teams are from the Czech Republic, the boys and the girls.  After three rounds  the boys are beating the girls.

12.37 pm

Round 2 FS Open and Female has been judged:  Belgium are now 9 points ahead of France - looks pretty awesome - Qatar and Russia are tied for 3rd with 47 and the UAE is now in 5th place with 45.  There is still a battle for third and could be for the second spot.  Meanwhile the girls - USA 1st with 53, France 2nd 49, Great Britain 41 and Czech Republic 39 we shall see if it gets more interesting.

During the FS briefing last night a question was asked by the VFS teams as to why there was no bottom camera.  The Chief Judge explained that it was not possible in the configuration of this tunnel as they could not get power to it and so the competition would be judged with the side camera - if that was not suitable the top camera would be used - fortunately both would be recording.  This morning after the judges looked at the evidence from the side camera a decision was made to use the top camera only for this competition.

The competitors were very upset last night, and it would seem that a change or addition to the rules for Indoor Skydiving is that there must be a floor camera for VFS competitions.

We have also had our first agreed re-flight request.  One of the female teams had a communication breakdown with the operator and did not enter the tunnel until only 30 seconds remained of their flight slot.  They have been granted a reflight of their 3rd round.  This will be taken at the end of the 4th round after all teams had flown.

There is a lot of media interest in this competition, and a team from a local TV station is here doing interviews - along with the work being done by the livestream team.

This is a Czech company called Airzone.TV

11.55 am

The first round of Freestyle has been judged and where are the French?  In first place Norway with 8.5 and tying for 2nd are the Czech Republic, Finland and Russia all with 8.4 - another close contest.  However the Juniors present a different picture;  in 1st place Poland with 9.0 and second Poland with 8.2 and the French junior behind on 7.0.  Interesting to see how the youngsters deal with the pressure of top competition.

Round 3 of 4-way has just started, so I expect the results of round 2 will appear very shortly on the system.

11.15 am

As Round 2 4-Way is underway, the results are up for the 1st Round.  We have the age old battle between the USA and France in the Female 4-way event with USA first with 25 points and France 2nd with 23 and Great Britain girls close behind with 21.  So a very open competition.  In the 4-Way Open event Belgium (who else) are in 1st place with 29 - France in second with 24 and Qatar in 3rd place with 23 with their own battle with UAE 4th with 22 points.

9.50 am

I wondered why the results of Round 1 for FS were not appearing under the above link so I went to find out.  I would seem that the 'best laid plans of mice and men' jinx had caused something in the computer system to break, and not only were the flights not sent to the judging room for judgement, the footage of most of the first round was lost.  So the solution is to fly the first round FS 4-Way Open, Female and Junior again.  The computer is fixed and so Round 1 started flying at 9.40 a.m.  This does however put great pressure on the organisers, as they have a very defined and tight schedule for the competition.  As I said yesterday, one of the joys of the tunnel is the ability to timetable the whole competition with confidence.

The picture above is of the Artistics Judges finalising the judging of round 1 Freestyle - I bet they are glad they are judging their events live!

At 8.00 this morning the first teams in 4-Way Female started flying and all the flights can be watched on the live-stream TV being produced here at the tunnel.

Last night we had the official opening ceremony.  This  was very professionally handled with short (and amusing) speeches.  We had the National Anthem, the FAI Anthem, good short videos and both the meet director Jiri Blaska wearing also the hat of his Czech Republic NAC representative, and Graham Windsor welcomed all the athletes and wished them a good competition. Graham made a special point of welcoming everyone to the future of our sport, particularly the juniors entered here.  After the official opening we then moved to the technical briefing given by the Meet Manager, Sarka Blaskova - again brief and delivered with humour.  The competitors then divided into the two disciplines Formation Skydiving and Artistics for their own individual briefings by the Chief Judges, Rina Gallo for Formation Skydiving and Ron Miasnikov Artistic Events.

The draws for FS are as follows:

Then it was an early night for most to prepare for 8.00 a.m start this morning.

8.55 and the first round of 4-Way Open, 4-Way Female and the demonstration from the 4-Way Junior team which impressed all watching!

Next into the tunnel are the Freeflyers, both Open and Junior.