28th July, 2010
The final touches are being made to an amazing site for these World Championships. The bungalows to house some competitors and officials smell of new paint and offer good accommodation. The team tents are very Tatar, brightly coloured in the national colours. Teams are arriving gradually and some are here training already. There is such an undercurrent of excitement as friendships are renewed and new ones made.
As teams arrive we shall be taking their pictures for posting on this site. The weather is also amazing – as Russia currently undergoes a recordbreaking heatwave – with temperatures in the mid 30’s and unbroken sunshire – and it is forecast to continue.
29th July, 2010
The Drop Zone is alive with the noise of manifest calls, aircraft taking off, hammer drills and electric tools as work continues to complete the site for this World Championships. Today is arrival day, so more and more teams come in with their tales of the long journey to Menzelinsk. Everyone has a story to tell, be it lost luggage, travelling across Moscow, time spent waiting for transport other teams etc. However, all the volunteer workers organised by the World Meet Organisation work so hard to make everyone welcome and take the opportunity to practice their English. Nothing seems to be too much trouble. The temperature is forecast to go to 40C degrees today – the established trees on the drop zone are a welcome refuge.
30th July, 2010
The judges are all here, and the judges conference started with a meeting at 10 am. this morning. The judging rooms are gradually being set up with Canopy Formations being made ready first and they have already spent half the day training, and coming up to speed. Meanwhile the Artistic guys are doing their thing and the first of the Formation Skydiving rooms is finalised – with two judging panels they need two rooms.
Meanwhile work continues on the drop zone with wooden buildings housing bars, ice-cream huts almost appearing over-night, and a variety of stalls selling souvenirs have already picked their spots and started selling. The competitors are continuing with their training jumps. Official practice jumps start tomorrow and the competition starts officially on 1st August at 8.00 a.m. We believe that the organisers are going to ask the Jury if they can start earlier each day for the Canopy Formations to take advantage of the stiller times of the day. With the continuing heat it gets very bumpy as the day progresses.
There is no let up in the heat wave forecast for the next few days!
31st July, 2010
The last of the teams are arriving – today is the final day for registration. The good news is we have a World Championship in Formation Skydiving 8-way with the registration of the Kazakhstan (although we had heard that Norway was also going to enter an 8-way team). The teams are making their practice jumps and once the dubbing station is ready, the judges will have work to do. The team briefings are at 5.00 p.m this evening.
1st August 2010.
8.00 a.m.
The World Championships commenced with Canopy Formations, 4-way Rotations. Formation Skydiving 4-Way Open – the first lift took off at 9.00 a.m. It is a short day skydiving today as the opening ceremony is scheduled for 18.00 in the local town.
20.00 After an impressive opening ceremony, (where I think all the children of the town had a role) and the town enjoyed a public holiday declared for the World Championships, the Prime Minister of the Republic of Tartarstan welcomed all the athletes and officials from all the nations represented at these World Championships. We then had an enormous thunder storm, torrential rain and wind – so another World Championships breaks a 2 month drought! The storm passed and the party on the drop zone started. Tomorrow there is an 8.00 a.m. start for Canopy Formations, 2-way and a 9.00 a.m. start for Formation Skydiving, 4-way Female, 8-way and VFS.
Artistic Events are due to start tormorrow afternoon.
Formation Skydiving, 4-Way Open: 17.10hrs Round 3 produced a World Record – but what a record, 2 teams scored 56 points – Russia and France, and other teams scoring over 50 points. We have a great competition under way here in Menzelinsk, Russia.
2nd August, 2010
11.30 am.The first videos are there – just follow the links. First video posted is of 4 of the round 3 jumps Open 4-Way –
416 – Russia 56 points, 414 – Canada 51 points , 418 – France 56 points and 411 – Germany 53 points.
The morning broke and the only signs of last night’s storm were the tents that had been blown down – now back up. The sun is shining again, 38 degrees is forecast and 2-way rotation CF started at 8.00 a.m. The first VFS teams took off at 9.00 a.m. Another good day ahead – will we see more World Records? We will try to sort the technology and bring you videos before today is out.
3rd August, 2010
With the hot weather continuing the competition is heading towards an early conclusion … and it remains hot (the competition) across all disciplines.
Midday: If you’re wondering why Kazakhstan is failing to score in the 8-Way Open (we’ve now completed Round 6), a team member suffered an injury to his shoulder during the jump, could not open his main and had to deploy his reserve – so they were out of the competition for the last two rounds. They are hopeful, after consulting the doctor, that they will be able to continue tomorrow.
11.30am Latest News ……. UK1 Freestyle submitted a protest, which has been upheld, and have been awarded a re-jump for Rd 2.
Wow – what a Meet this is turning out to be with World and National Records being broken all the time! On Sunday we had 6 countries exceeding scores of 50 points in the FS 4-Way Open, yesterday we had Australia and Finland excelling themselves in the CF 2-Way Sequential and now both UK and USA1 have broken World Record in the 1st compulsories (Round 2) of Freefly. UK achieved 19 points, swiftly followed by USA1 with 24 points! Of course, all these need final ratification by the FAI.
19.40 Manifest announces the programme for tomorrow. 8.00 a.m. start for CF 4-way sequential. 9.00 a.m. for VFS and 8-way. 14.00 4-way Open, 4-way female, Freefly and Freestyle. 16.00 CF with 4-way rotations.
4th August 2010
13.10 The last round of 8-way Formation Skydiving is in the air now. France is leading USA by 3 points after the busts USA took in Round 9. All Freefly rounds have been jumped, we are now waiting on the judges scores.
After a much cooler night, teams arrived this morning refreshed – some even wore jumpers! The morning started with 2-way Rotations CF – 8-way Formation Skydiving – even the artistic teams had to get up early today as we also had Freestyle and Freefly.
15.20 France takes the Gold Medal in the 8-Way Open with a total event score of 203, beating the USA by 7 points. Russia takes the Bronze Medal with a score of 185. In the Artistic Events Freestyle has completed with USA 1 1st, UK 1 2nd and USA 2 3rd. Canopy Formations also has a completed event with 2-Way sequential: USA2, Australia and Russia.
21.30 4th August 2010 All World Meets end with the Formation Skydiving open 4-Way being the last event judged. Imagine the tension on the DZ when power to the DZ TV was cut just as the judging of round 10 Female 4-Way and then Open 4-Way started. It was restored in time for the last two dives – with USA and France level at the end of round 9 it was a tension jump. The USA scored 23 and France 26 to win their 4th Gold Medal of this World Championships in Formation Skydiving. Congratulations to all the winners.
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