posted Oct 10th, 2024 - The story of the 26th FAI World Formation Skydiving Championships began with the cancellation of the event in Israel that the NSL News reported on 13 October 2023. The update on 23 October 2023 followed up with the timeline for substitute hosting.

Potential hosts had three weeks of time left for a new bid, and the NSL News reported on 2 December 2023 that Skydive Paraclete XP and Skydive Chicago had created plans together how to host the event at Crystal Coast Skydiving. Less than a year later, the Formation Skydiving competition events were completed after all ten rounds, and the new world champions will be honored on Saturday at the awards ceremony.

It seemed to be a Mission Impossible what Skydive Chicago's Rook Nelson and Paraclete XP's John D'Annnunzio had in mind when they decided to step in on a short call and create a special event at the same time. Both run professional and successful skydiving centers that have hosted many major events. Still they came up with the idea to run the outdoor world championship at a different location, Crystal Coast Skydiving. Rook Nelson and John D'Annnunzio both are experienced enough to know what they were doing when they committed to the special plans. It was obviously not a Mission Impossible for them, rather more a challenging task for two seasoned competitors who motivated each other to work together and master the necessary logistics within the time frame of less than a year.

FAI Outdoor World Championship 2024			1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	Total	Avg
Rank	8-way Open		14,G,13	J,C,17,12	D,A,21,P	18,B,H,F	E,L,O,8	22,2,K	6,7,16	9,20,15	3,M,N,4	5,1,10	Total	Avg
1	GKXP8	US	19	21	22	26	21	21	25	24	37	23	239	23.9
2	Qatar Falcons	QA	16	18	19	21	17	16	20	19	25	19	190	19.0
3	Operation Adler	DE	14	14	11	13	13	14	15	14	20	15	143	14.3
FAI Outdoor World Championship 2018			1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	Total	Avg
Rank	4-way VFS		21,L,B,G	22,18,17	19,7,O	J,16,12	10,A,D,15	Q,M,F,C,N	H,20,P,13	6,14,11	E,2,5	4,1,3	Total	Avg
1	SDC Core	US	26	26	20	27	17	19	19	23	21	19	217	21.7
2	Evolution	CA	22	17	15	23	15	15	13	20	19	17	176	17.6
3	Focus	AU	22	20	13	20	12	16	14	17	18	20	172	17.2

---

John D'Annunzio with GKXP8 earlier this week - Rook Nelson with SDC Core in Australia 2018

---

They could look back at their own experiences as competitors with several world and national championship titles in their respective collections. John D'Annunzio won his first 8-way world championship title with XP8 at Weembi Lille in 2019, after he and Kirk Verner had carefully developed their 8-way project at Paraclete. Together they won more FAI 8-way world championship titles in Tanay 2021 and Eloy 2022, this week at Crystal Coast.

Rook Nelson has won his own world championship and additional other titles in 4-way VFS with U.S. national team SDC Core, including the one on his home turf at Skydive Chicago in 2016. He was the host for the FAI Outdoor World Championship 2016, where a total of eight teams competed in his event, including the Canadian LeMay brothers of Evolution who competed once again in 4-way Open and 4-way VFS and placed 2nd on the VFS leaderboard. Rook Nelson's SDC Core lineups won by 17 points after eight rounds in 2016 and added VFS gold in 2018, 2021, 2022 and this week.

The outdoor world championship in 2016 was also the event where the Golden Knights posted their first 23.9 average that GKXP8 tied this week at Crystal Coast. The U.S. delegation was only one event short of another complete FS Sweep, and only NMP PCH HayaBusa interfered at Skydive Chicago. Rook Nelson's current SDC Core lineup (Chazi Rutz, Seth Studer, Youngsup Lee, Joshua Sattler, John Blackburn) completed this year's U.S. Sweep by a 1-point margin. Rook Nelson and John D'Annnunzio both agreed to explain for the NSL News how they turned Crystal Coast Skydiving into the competition site of an outdoor world championship.

---

---

NSL Live Talk: World Meet Hosts Rook Nelson (Skydive Chicago) and John D'Annunzio (Paraclete XP)

---