2 days to go, Cheboksary, Russia

This is a hint of the welcome that awiats the teams still to arrive for the European Championships and World Cups in Freefall Style and Accuracy Landing.  Official arrival and registration plus training jumps start tomorrow.  Many teams are already here and have taken advantage of the good weather to get in some training jumps on this DZ.  In total 17 Delegations have pre-registered with a total of 155 competitors.  We shall see the final make up of the teams once they have all arrived.  The judges are in place and have spent the last couple of days coming up to speed for this year's First Category Event.  The Jury is also present, thankfully with little to do!

Cheboksary is in the Chuvash Republic of Russia.  It is a large city with over 600,000 inhabitants and a satelite town of a further 150,000.  When I asked the young man who was working as the co-ordinator of the competition on behalf of the Ministry of Physical Training, Sports and Tourism he told me that the main industry was Beer, but then modified it to - we do have the largest Tractor Factory in Russia, manufacturing for supply to Siberia - the satelite town has a large chemical manufacturing plant.  The city is on the Volga River to the East of Moscow and can be reached by a 14 hour train ride or 11/2 hour flight + a car ride.

The forcast is good for the next few days.  Blue skies with some cloud - we look forward to a good competition.