posted Sep 12th, 2023 - The 23rd FAI World Cup of Formation Skydiving featured a very special coincidence in the 4-way Open Class competition. The teams in the first three places on the world cup leaderboard had something in common that has little and still much to do with the actual competition.

The team videographers play a major role in Formation Skydiving competition, especially in the medal area of the 4-way Open event, where the break of each sequence's first formation usually happens in less than a second. Any flaw of the videographer's exit at the wrong time can cause a point deduction, which has the potential to win or lose a medal position.

The team videographers of this year's world cup medal winners could actually afford the loss of a point or two, as they were separated enough and could not cause major damage by video busts. Only France and NMP PCH HayaBusa challenged each other seriously after the first two rounds. However, they still naturally shared the athletic desire to perform without any point deduction on their end, and they were almost perfect together.

The special coincidence was the fact that they also shared their first names, David French for Arizona Airspeed, David Ricard for France and David Grauwels for NMP PCH HayaBusa.

23rd FAI World Cup of Formation Skydiving			1		2		3		4		5		6		7		8		9		10		Total	Avg
Rank	4-way Open		3,G,N,19		11,17,L		13,7,C		2,D,O,8		14,K,J,12		9,M,P,H		5,4,18		15,1,10		16,21,E		F,20,6		Total	Avg
1	Arizona Airspeed	US	26		27		26		25		22		48	-1	22		21		25		25		267	26.7
2	France 4-way Open	FR	23		25	-1	26		24		19		45	-1	19		19		23		23		246	24.6
3	NMP PCH HayaBusa	BE	20	-4	20	-2	25		23	-1	18	-2	45		20		19		24		24		238	23.8

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Arizona Airspeed - France - NMP PCH HayaBusa at the 23rd FAI World Cup of Formation Skydiving - Video footage courtesy of InTime/FAI/ISC

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This very unusual coincidence happened when Airspeed's team videographer Brandon Haddon was not available for the trip to Norway. Airspeed was fortunate that David French was able to replace him for the last training and the competition. He was filming Arizona Airspeed's 4-way team between 2017 and 2019, which included the world championship in Australia 2018 and the world cup in Eloy 2019, plus the three USPA Nationals in the same time frame.

Brandon Haddon will be back with Arizona Airspeed for the upcoming USPA Nationals and the near future, while David French completed the coincidence of the same three first names of the medal winners at Skydive Voss.

The three Davids together lost only one point, which happened to the Belgian David with NMP PCH HayaBusa in Round 5. The two point deductions in the same round were the last ones for HayaBusa for the remainder of the competition. David French and David Ricard completed their ten rounds without any point deductions.

David French's team mates almost kept up with their videographer's performance and lost only one single point in the judging room. There were only two 4-way Open Class teams in Norway (Qatar Cheetahs and Dutch team LUX) who finished the meet without any point deductions. France were only one penalty point behind Arizona Airspeed.

InTime chart of point deductions for all 4-way Open Class teams at the 23rd FAI World Cup of Formation Skydiving

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