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Did You Know...

... that Nikolay Vylegzhanin was as bright as a shooting star?

Nikolay Vylegzhanin - Oleg Shalamykhin
posted May 15th, 2015 - Russian 8-way world champion Oleg Shalamykhin provided the Sun Path Products NSL News with memories of his former 4-way and 8-way team mate Nikolay Vylegzhanin, who died in a BASE jump accident last year, shortly after competing at the FAI World Championship of Formation Skydiving 2014.

The first part of the biography was posted on May 4th and covered the beginnings of Nikolay Vylegzhanin's skydiving career. The second part on May 10th included the transition in Russia from state-sponsored national teams to professional skydivers after the fall of the socialistic economy. Oleg Shalamykhin and Nikolay Vylegzhanin both trained and competed in 4-way and 8-way throughout this transition.

Today's last part of the biography and Oleg Shalamykhin's memories presents Nikolay Vylegzhanin in the recent years of his skydiving career, when he was finally a member of the Russian national 4-way and 8-way teams and spent a lot of time together with Oleg Shalamykhin - until after the world meet in Prostejov last year.

Barkli 8-way invitation in 2010

NIKOLAY VYLEGZHANIN - Written by Oleg Shalamykhin

In 2010, Nikolay received an invitation from the 8-way team Barkli to join them, and a year later, he was also on the Barkli 4-way lineup. We were flying opposing slots in both teams, so we looked into each other's eyes all the time.

Both as a coach and an athlete, I always expected more from Nikolay than of the others. Seventeen years after I met him for the first time, we were finally in the same team, and I wanted to share with him the knowledge and experience our team had.

Sometimes I was a bit too hard on him, but it was just because I saw his desire to become a world champion, and I had a desire to share this dream with him. Formation Skydiving was the only subject I could teach him about. About anything else I couldn’t stop listening and learning from this unique man.

World Meet 2014Rd. 1Rd. 2Rd. 3Rd. 4Rd. 5Rd. 6Rd. 7Rd. 8Rd. 9Rd. 10TotalAvg
Rank4-way OpenE,3,C,5F,6,D,2119,H,2M,4,1O,14,A,P8,J,167,11,1222,20,1517,G,1813,B,9TotalAvg
1NMP-PCH Hayabusa BE 3229252533252218262926426.4
2Arizona Airspeed US 3127252431232217242925325.3
3Evolution CA 3128242228232021252724924.9
4VoltR FR 2426182326202013242121521.5
5Barkli RU 2423202225211916182621421.4
Barkli 4-way at the Mondial Dubai 2012
Beside skydiving and coaching in the wind tunnel Nikolay was fond of skiing, scuba diving, martial arts and shooting. He was reading every spare moment, and not many people know that Nikolay was writing poems. He was also an outstanding biker and had extensive knowledge about car mechanics.

One of his favorite hobbies was para-motoring and he was flying every morning at sunrise and at sunset after our training jumps. Nikolay liked to share his knowledge and skills about para-motoring, and soon our fellow skydivers Alexey Minaev and Leonid Kazinets joined him and became para-motor pilots themselves.

I was always struck by Nikolay’s phenomenal capacity to work. He could wake up at sunrise to fly his Para-motor, then he would do his morning exercise routine, finish our ten training jumps with the 8-way team, and afterwards he continued jumping and coaching junior 4-way teams. Then he would finish the day by flying the para-motor until the sun went down, hop on his bike and ride back to his family or to the wind tunnel to have some coaching sessions. He would back at the DZ before sunrise ready to start his day again...

World Meet 2014Rd. 1Rd. 2Rd. 3Rd. 4Rd. 5Rd. 6Rd. 7Rd. 8Rd. 9Rd. 10Rd. 11T.Avg
Rank8-way OpenE,3,C,5F,G,D,2119,H,2M,4,1O,14,A,P8,J,167,11,1222,20,1517,G,1813,B,9Q,10,N,LT.Avg
1Golden Knights24221526222119262120-21621.6
2Barkli191813251416161918132019117.4
3Venturi191614231813181915161919017.3
Last competition at the World Meet 2014 in Prostejov
Nikolay was an incredible man who would always find time to pay attention to every person who approached him. And there were many!

People would ask advice from Nikolay about anything, starting with Formation Skydiving or Freeflying and finishing with breathing techniques, or which good book to read. He would never refuse to help. It is hard to believe that one human-being can have so much energy, inner power and love to share with everyone. It was Nikolay’s phenomenon and enigma.

His life wasn’t long, but it was as bright as a shooting star, and Nikolay left an eternal mark in the memories of the people who had the privilege to know him. Now that I cannot ask him another question, can’t tell him a joke, give him a hug or share another skydive, I am just grateful that on such a big planet I had the privilege to call him Friend.

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