posted Aug 10th, 2006 - The window for jumping any more complete rounds in Gera gets smaller and smaller by the minute. Clouds have covered the sky once again, and the first action by the meet director was to cancel the completion of round six in the female category of the 4-way competition.

Plan was to skip the other "selection rounds" and move straight ahead to the semi-finals, which were started at approx. 3:00 pm. The ten teams in both classes came quite far, only three teams did not make the round, which will now be considered incomplete and be dropped, as well.

All three Formation Skydiving events will now move forward into the final round. This means that the best six teams of each competition class will apply the sequence of round ten, which is assigned to the official "final round" in the rule book. Any scores between the last completed rounds of the three events will not count.

Many teams have made jumps in the meantime, which were all done for nothing. In fact, the teams that made the skydives have either had some extra freefall training or have wasted their precious energy. It can be looked at this extra freefall time in both ways.

The same teams and all other teams on competition site have also spent a lot of time on the creepers and otherwise to prepare for jumps that would be done or not. The current set of IPC rules regarding the cut order and sequences for the competition jumps in the semi-final and final round have been put to a serious test and seem to be questionable.

The current weather situation in Gera has made it very challenging for the meet management and for the teams. There is still a chance to complete the final round, which was the sequence for round ten. The teams are back on a call, and the 8-way competition will make the first attempt to get in the air.

Stay tuned for updates.

Planes are in the air for round ten

There is still enough spice in the soup, even if there is only time for one more round. It is quite unlikely that any team in the 4-way events will be able to catch DeLand Fire and Perris Airkix. France seems to be in a safe 8-way position, as well. However, USA and Russia are tied in 3rd place in the female category, and the 4-way Open Class has three teams separated by two points for two sets of medals.

The weather situation is still not very pretty, but the planes took off, and there is still enough time for a complete round. Six teams of each event are ready to go, and the scores and videos will be posted soon. Or not...

Award ceremony is next

The meet is over. No other round was completed. The two hours of waiting time after the last posted score have passed. The new world champions will climb on the podium very soon.

FS World Champions 2006

4-way Open: 1. USA - 2. France - 3. Italy

4-way Women: 1. Great Britain - 2. France - 3. Russia

8-way: 1. France - 2. USA - 3. Russia