WCIS - 2016, Day 4

Saturday 15th October

07.59hrs:  Here we are on Day 4 which is the final day of the World Cup, when the podium places will be decided. For most teams it is still a nail biting competition and whilst we wait for the tunnel start up, the Junior 4-Way teams are lining up to take their turn. Of course, a clean tunnel is an efficient one, so the staff were busy first thing cleaning every nook and cranny.

08.50hrs:  As the 4-Way teams battle for their final positions in Round 10, we have the first medal winners, as the 4-Way Junior event has concluded with the Gold Medal going to Canada's Air Devils, the Silver Medal to France Junior 1 AK Demie and the Bronze Medal to Canada's other team, Tunnel Vision.  Many congratulations to Canada for getting their 1st Gold Medal since the 1980s - their first in the 21st Century!

The 4-Way Female event has also finished with  the Gold Medal going to France 1 Female, the United Kingdom taking Silver and Bronze with teams Volition and NFTO. Congratulations to you all ladies!

With Hayabusa having regained 1st place and reinforcing it with a blistering Round 9 score of 41 points,  they've just flown their concluding flight to raptuous applause from the audience! Now it's down to the Judges!

Here are the positions in 4-Way Open at the end of Round 9:

These are the final standings and Medal Winners in the Junior and Female 4-Way events:

Another packed auditorium as we are entertained by the Freestyle routines of both the Junior and Senior  flyers - their final round. Without doubt the mere 'cuteness' of the junior flyers is winning over the audience - even the hard ones have glissening eyes!

The Artistic Events' Judges have viewed and judged live throughout the competition, unlike aircraft based jumps where they judge the video, only disappearing to their judging room to oversee video footage as necessary before they verify their scores. With the final Round 7 completed in both the Freestyle events, the judges have emerged to declare the medalists as follows. The Gold Medal is awarded to the current World Champion, Inka Tiitto from Finland, the Silver to the flamboyant Russian, Leonid Volkov, with the Bronze being awarded to an equally colourful performer, Martin Dedek from the Czech Republic.

With Singapore's first ever showing at a World Skydiving competition, we're delighted to see their entrant in the Freestyle Junior event, Kyra Poh, take the Gold Medal, with an average score per round of 9.04 - truly a remarkable performance throughout. Likewise, it's a real honour for the host country of this World Cup to have both the Silver and Bronze medals, which are awarded to brother and big sister, Andrzej and Aleksandra Soltyk.

We now have Round 10 in the FS 4-Way Open judged and with each of the top 3 teams gaining 31 points in their last flight the final positions remain unaltered, giving Hayabusa the Gold Medal, France taking the Silver and Bronze with France 2 and France 1 respectively. All the scores and positions have since been verified and signed off by the Chief Judges.

With the conclusion of 4-Way Open, 4-Way Female, 4-Way Junior and the Freestyle (Open and Junior) events, we now bring the Formation Skydiving to a close with 4-Way VFS. The competition here in Warsaw will be concluded with the final 'battle' rounds of 2-Way Dynamic, which is likely to be an exciting couple of hours!

Throughout the competition, from morning to night, Regan Tetlow has been commentating and interviewing people, ably assisted by Rai Ahmned, who is very knowledgeable on all aspects of Formation Skydiving and Anna Moxnes, who not only comes from a family of skydivers, but is well qualified to give us the lowdown on Freestyle and Dynamic flying - and if that isn't enough - it's her birthday today!

In the meantime the Judges have been hard at work and have scored the final round of 4-Way VFS, giving the 1st place Gold Medal to SDC Core of USA, the Silver Medal goes to Russia with their Flystation VFS team and in 3rd position we have the USA's Golden Knights picking up the Bronze Medal.  For those of you wondering about the initials of 'SDC', they stand for SkyDive Chicago and in fact are the current World Champions in VFS. We offer our hearty Congratulations to all Medal Winners!

After the exciting battles in the 2-Way Dynamic Tournament, it came down to a tie-break flight between Vipers and France 1 2WD, with the Gold Medal going to the host country and with it, a trio of Gold, Silver and Bronze medals for the Soltyk family!  The 2-Way Dynamic team from Poland - Vipers - with Andrzej Soltyk and his partner Joshua Ruiz-Velasco were really up against some strong opposition in the final rounds, but held their nerve to win through!  The Silver medal was awarded to France 1 2WD with the Bronze going to Suisse One.

 Congratulations to each and every winner and thanks to all the competitors for giving us such an entertaining - and nail-biting few days!

Let the parties begin!