posted May 23rd, 2018 - It was 2013 the last time I touched a very sensitive nerve in Formation Skydiving competition: the FAI/IPC rules for my beloved sport.

I always try not to be too critical, as I really love the sport and its community, and often I just swallow a few times and move on without saying anything. On the other hand, my German roots, I guess, make it very difficult for me to keep my mouth shut when there is something controversial that I should contribute to a discussion.

However, I have come to the point again where I cannot keep my mouth shut and it is the same topic, the rules. For several years, I have given our sanctioning organization, the International Parachuting Commission (IPC) of the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI), credit for leaving the rules untouched, as they were good and working well. Then I recently felt like picking up the topic again when suggestions for new dive pool changes came to my attention (Turning Points: Slippery Road).

I am still hoping that the rules - and the dive pool as part of them - will not change, as I support continuity and consistency if there is no major problem. And there is nothing wrong with the current dive pool.

TURNING POINTS: Tie-Breaking Drama - Forward into the Past

Unfortunately, there is another issue that seemed to be already resolved. Just as the lawmakers in our sport seem to have agreed that consistent and reliable rules are beneficial for a sport (as for any administration), while they fix things when they need to be fixed, which happened last time after the FAI World Cup 2013 in Banja Luka.

It was the tie-breaking procedure that was flawed and it came to the surface when the athletic outcome of the 4-way Women's competition was questioned:

"Several participants questioned whether the score for Round 2 was the proper and fair factor to break the tie between the two teams in Banja Luka - and for any other competition. The jump-off itself as the first level of the tie-breaking procedure was never in doubt and is fully supported by everybody.

Of course, it adds extra spice to an exciting competition and offers another opportunity for the teams to win the battle in freefall (in the flying chamber). The main questions are behind the next level of tie-breaking, in case the teams don't do it in the jump-off round, or when the weather situation or the schedule may not allow any additional jumps."

FAI World Cup 2013			1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	Total	Avg
Rank	AAA Class		O,4,H,3	9,17,P	L,1,G,12	7,10,21	16,E,A,15	8,2,B	18,5,Q	F,14,K,N	M,C,D,13	20,J,19	22,11,6	Total	Avg
1	Aerodyne French Girls	FR	21	27	16	18	20	17	17	23	24	20	17	203	20.3
2	Golden Knights	US	22	25	17	17	19	18	21	20	24	20	17	203	20.3
3	Bodyflight Isis	UK	19	18	17	14	16	16	16	17	21	16	-	170	17.0
4	Kaizen	UK	16	21	14	16	15	14	15	18	19	15	-	163	16.3
5	Dubai Asaar Ladies	AE	15	16	13	12	15	12	13	17	14	14	-	141	14.1
6	Seraphim	UK	14	14	11	13	13	12	11	13	14	10	-	125	12.5
7	Fire	SE	13	14	10	9	10	11	13	16	15	12	10	123	12.3
8	Infra Red Band	RU	14	12	13	12	11	10	10	16	14	11	8	123	12.3
9	Team XX	UK	13	13	10	10	10	11	11	13	14	-	-	105	11.7
10	SolarFlakes	LT	8	8	2	7	8	8	4	10	10	6	-	71	7.1

The lawmakers (FAI/IPC) took on the issue and had it fixed with a new definition for the tie-breaking procedure and it was successfully applied a few times between 2014 and 2017. In fact, the last time the tie-breaking procedure of that time period was used was the FAI World Cup 2017 in Saarlouis where the Russian team Bubble Trouble won silver medals after applying the rules when bad weather stopped the meet short of completion. Bubble Trouble was the stronger team at the end of the meet (Round 5), the finish line in our sport, and the silver medals went to Russia.

It would have been different according to the tie-breaking rules of the time period before 2014. Fuzion Voltige from Canada would have won the silver with the highest score of the meet in Round 1 - which was completed several days before reaching the finish line in Saarlouis.

The FAI/IPC law makers apparently still did not like the rules they had applied since 2014, as they changed the tie-breaking procedure again at the beginning of this year. It did not catch my attention, as I did not expect a step backward in time. Only the latest tie-breaking situation at FAI's new European Indoor Championships in Norway made me wonder what was going on.

The British national team NFTO and again Russia's Bubble Trouble were tied after Round 10 and went back into the flying chamber for an extra round, and I love that. They tied their scores again and that was it for the flying part. The rules allow only one extra round and then require the application of the tie-breaking procedure.

Fine - until I found out that the winner of the silver medals was the team with the highest score in the 10-round meet. What... ??? Yes, the rules had changed again and they are identical with the ones until 2013. Forward into the past...

FAI World Cup 2017			1	2	3	4	5	Total	Avg
Rank	4-way Women		L,O,F,K,11	C,3,7	13,2,G	1,17,20	5,E,21	Total	Avg
1	French Weembi Girls	FR	29	17	19	16	23	104	20.8
2	Bubble Trouble	RU	23	20	16	14	18	91	18.2
3	Parachute Montreal Fuzion	CA	24	20	16	15	16	91	18.2
4	No Mercy	PL	20	15	10	13	15	73	14.6
5	Meija	SE	19	14	10	12	14	69	13.8
6	PTW	UK	13	9	8	9	11	50	10.0
7	Kesshin	UK	10	7	6	6	9	38	7.6

Somebody told me that it was too difficult or too complicated for the judges and officials to find out who won the very last round by following the previous tie-breaking procedure of 2014 - 2017. This meant in Norway, in April 2018, that NFTO won with a score in Round 8, which was completed a day earlier.

The results of Round 9, 10 and the extra round had become irrelevant. The finish line of the competition was simply moved backward into the middle of the meet.

Don't get me wrong, please. I am completely neutral about the winner, I just love the excitement and drama of 4-way competition and I wish there were medals for everybody.

NFTO and Bubble Trouble are both winners by competing at all and only one team could have the silver medals. However, the question is still the same: Who should get the medals in such a situation?

The answer is simple to me. I suggested it five years ago and the FAI/IPC law makers obviously agreed then:

FAI European Indoor Championships 2018			1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	Total	Avg
Rank	4-way Women		G,12,20	F,16,22	N,E,D,21	17,L,4	18,14,O	19,2,5	7,15,Q	6,B,M,P	K,11,9	8,H,J,C	10,A,3	Total	Avg
1	Aerodyne Weembi Girls	FR	25	30	39	29	25	27	33	45	32	38	-	323	32.3
2	Volto	UK	21	24	32	25	20	20	25	40	30	28	21	265	26.5
3	Bubble Trouble	RU	17	25	30	24	23	23	24	39	26	34	21	265	26.5
4	Team X	SE	19	24	29	24	19	22	26	31	24	27	-	245	24.5
5	No Mercy	PL	18	20	24	20	19	19	27	32	23	23	-	225	22.5
6	Voss Vind Girls	NO	15	19	22	17	16	16	19	26	22	25	-	197	19.7

"The tied teams are performing the same sequence at any time of the meet and always try to complete as many scoring formations in the 35-second working time as possible. There is always the last formation within working time for each team. That's literally the last action of the competition for all teams, including the two or more tied teams. The first team may have completed the last scoring formation at 34.78 seconds, and the other team at 34.95 seconds. The first team was obviously a little bit faster/better at the very end of the competition and would be the winner with this tie-breaking procedure."

"As usual, I like to look around at other sports instead of re-inventing wheels, or rules. Sudden Death it is called when ice-hockey teams break their tie in overtime. Everything that happened before doesn't matter any longer. The same counts for any other overtime rules in other sports (running, basketball, football, soccer, etc.). Golfers play additional holes and have to forget what happened earlier."

"The jump-off in Formation Skydiving competition follows the same rule and the same idea: The performance of a team at the jump-off point in time is the deciding factor. In other words, the better team at the last point in time should be the winner. This is not the case when the tie-breaking procedure finds the winning factor in Round 2 of a 10-round meet, which was done days earlier."

Nothing more to say, five years later...