posted May 4th, 2015 - The recent Sun Path Products NSL News story on April 28th explained the plans of the Russian 8-way team Tanay for this year and for the 2016 world meet season. The same story brought back memories of a Russian 4-way and 8-way competitor who was a member of several different world class lineups, including Barkli's 4-way and 8-way lineups.

Nikolay Vylegzhanin was Barkli team mate with Tanay's 8-way player coach Oleg Shalamykhin in 4-way and 8-way at the FAI World Championship of Formation Skydiving 2014. Tanay member Alexey Minaev was also in Barkli's 8-way lineup last year.

Nikolay Vylegzhanin died in a BASE jump accident shortly after the world meet, and his team mate Oleg Shalamykhin collected his own memories to remember the good times he and many others shared with him. Oleg Shalamykhin is a 2-time Russian 8-way world champion of 2001 and 2003. It's a long story, and it will be published piece by piece.

NIKOLAY VYLEGZHANIN - Written by Oleg Shalamykhin

On February 23rd Nikolay would have been 41 years old. It is hard to believe that he hass not been with us for half a year already, because there wasn’t even a day throughout the past six months that he wasn’t in my thoughts. There is a saying that the person is alive as long as we remember him. Well, then Nikolay will live forever in the hearts of many, many people.

I would like to share and tell a bit more about this amazing, bright, wonderful person. During training camps and competitions we often meet a lot of new people. With some of them we have a friendly chats about our amount of jumps, goals and plans, with others just a casual greeting. With some we can have a couple of drinks at the closing ceremony, and we don’t even approach some people because of the language barrier or other reasons.

One way or another, we do remember people we have met during the events, but when one of the skydivers passes away, sometimes all we can say is that he was jumping for a certain team and was a great guy.

World Meet 2014		Rd. 1	Rd. 2	Rd. 3	Rd. 4	Rd. 5	Rd. 6	Rd. 7	Rd. 8	Rd. 9	Rd. 10	Rd. 11	T.	Avg
Rank	8-way Open Class	E,3,C,5	F,G,D,21	19,H,2	M,4,1	O,14,A,P	8,J,16	7,11,12	22,20,15	17,G,18	13,B,9	Q,10,N,L	T.	Avg
1	Golden Knights (US)	24	22	15	26	22	21	19	26	21	20	-	216	21.6
2	Barkli (RU)	19	18	13	25	14	16	16	19	18	13	20	191	17.4
3	Venturi (FR)	19	16	14	23	18	13	18	19	15	16	19	190	17.3

Nikolay was born in the ancient Russian city of Yaroslavl in 1974. Since very young age he was doing martial arts and Ushu. Until the last days he kept his samurai sword in his house and was training with it. Later he graduated from the University with a physical education degree.

His uncle was a pilot, and Nikolay dreamt of flying. So he completed the pilot’s course and started flying a MI-2 helicopter. During this time he did his first skydive.

As many of those who jumped once from a perfect sound airplane and had the privilege of tasting the blue skies, Nikolay was completely hooked after his first skydive and continued his progression at Yaroslavl Air Club. I met Nikolay in 1993 when I came back to Yaroslavl to visit my friends, relatives and my home air club. I was jumping for the Central Sports Parachute Club of Ryazan for three years by then, but lost my position in the leading team that went to the world meet in Arizona to Sergey Shenin.

Mondial Dubai 2012			Rd. 1	Rd. 2	Rd. 3	Rd. 4	Rd. 5	Rd. 6	Rd. 7	Rd. 8	Rd. 9	Rd. 10	Total	Avg
Rank	8-way Open Class		N,21,B,5	14,C,13	22,M,20	17,H,16	J,E,12,4	7,19,15	G,K,8,2	O,L,F,P,A	10,11,18	9,Q,D,1	Total	Avg
1	Golden Knights	US	21	19	27	26	26	18	20	28	19	25	229	22.9
2	Aerodyne Maubeuge	FR	22	19	22	23	27	20	20	28	19	25	225	22.5
3	Sky Panthers Barkli	RU	19	18	22	22	21	15	15	24	16	20	192	19.2

So this visit to Yaroslavl was like an escape for me and a new start with my training. At the air club I was introduced to a group of young parachutists. I soon became friends with one of them, and we started to jump together. It was Nikolay.

He was inspired by my stories about Formation Skydiving, about all the champions and skydiving athletes that he could only read about. I was amazed by his spirit, self-control and his persistence to reach his goals. Even small things mattered, and there was no chance that he would give up on anything.

Once he and his friends decided to jump from a bridge with elastic cords tied to their feet. They saw a picture of bungee jumping somewhere and decided that they can do it as well. What could possibly be so difficult? Luckily they decided to test the elastic cord with a 50 kg bar bell first. The cord broke instantaneously, and the bungee jumping project came to an end abruptly.

However, Nikolay didn’t want to just walk away. He decided at least to get the bar bell from the bottom of the river... I’m talking about a young Russian who already achieved his diver's license in a rescue organization at the age of 19...

When I came back to Ryazan I told my coaches about this outstanding young man and soon Nikolai's skydiving career started as a member of our team.

During winter time we were doing some exercises to improve our fitness, while waiting for the spring to start our jumps. Nikolay gave his best in whatever he was doing, pushing his own limits. Once during a 35-meter free diving distance test under water, Nikolay didn’t stop and carried on diving. Only when he almost had a blackout he came up after 50 meters.

To be continued...