posted Oct 24th, 2005 - The competition of the IPC World Cup 2005 has begun. The competition draw for all three Formation Skydiving events was announced and delivered to the teams at 5:00 pm on Sunday. Teams went to work right away, and traffic at the drop zone slowed down as soon as the jump preparation was completed.

The competition draw includes a very fast sequence (M-J-O-5) in round three for the 4-way teams. There was already a lot of discussion whether this sequence offers the potential for a new world record. The random transitions are all very quick and easy, and Block 5 (Opal - Opal) is one of the fastest blocks in the dive pool. However, the same block also brings memory or mirror images into the sequence. The afternoon will show how close to the current world record of 42 points teams will get.

The first day of competition begins with 8-way. The 4-way teams are supposed to show up at noon. The 8-way jumps can already be viewed on NSL-TV, which was finally set up successfully after several flaws and obstacles on the way.

Round one already showed what can be expected in the 8-way competition. It will once again be a horse race between Arizona Airspeed and the French 8-way team from LaPalisse/Maubeuge. France delivered a very clean 21-pointer before Airspeed was shown on the DZ-TV screen.

The US team looked more aggressive than the French team, and the extra energy paid back by one point. France had just build the first Snowflake and initiated the inter of Block 4, while Airspeed completed the rest of the inter and the In-Out as the 22nd scoring formation.

The Italian 8-way team Ex3mo came out of the gates with a strong and aggressive performance, as well, while Russia was still far away from the French quality level and the Russian 8-way performance of 2001 and 2003. Italy and Russia both scored 16 points for round one. Italy might set itself up in a position to challenge the Russian 8-way team here in Eloy.