Early Morning Vodka
Smoke on the ... Everything
Competitors at the Canopy Piloting World Championships are plagued by the dense smoke that has engulfed the area. So, at breakfast in the hotel, PD Factory Team members and some of the South African delegation decided to bond with the locals with a few vodka toasts to set the morning off. The smoke is pretty thick outside so our chances of jumping are low. These guys started the meet roulette game early.
Breakfast of Champions
Bobo Birthday Swoops
The PD Factory Team celebrated the end of their recent training camp – and team member Ian Bobo’s birthday! – with some swoops into the Deep Woods Ranch. Photographer Justin Carmody set up to capture the magic and we set up to capture the magic-capturing. Enjoy!
[Warning: extremely cute but annoying dog barks throughout this video. Loudly. Incessantly. Gratingly. You've been warned.]
For more of Justin’s photography, check out his website and the pages of Blue Skies Mag.
Tagle Wins in Dubai
From the Dubai Parachuting Championships and Gulf Cup 2010, we got word that Jonathan Tagle has inched ahead of Marat Leiras to claim first place, with Jay Moledzki in third in canopy piloting!
In the 4-way competition, USA’s Arizona Airspeed beat out Belgium and France; the women’s results are France, Germany, Spain. And, in accuracy, it’s Christian Auswoeger, Quargaf El Hassane and Al–Suwaidi Matar.
Congrats to everyone! Full scores here.
Jay Moledzki Takes the Gold
Jay celebrates with team mates Ian, Shannon and Jessica
From the PD Blog:
After the completion of nine rounds Jay Moledzki from the PD Factory team stood atop 66 competitors as the winner of the 2009 World Cup in Canopy Piloting. The final round of accuracy was completed on Sunday morning in a downwind. The full results can be found here on the events official website.
There were also two new world records set yesterday afternoon. The first was in the speed event set by Greg Windmiller of the US Golden Kinghts/USA with a time of 2.093 seconds. The second was in distance set by Nicolas Batsch of the USA with a distance of 181.70 meters.
Posted with permission from Performance Designs, Inc.
Photo courtesy of Performance Designs, Inc.
Wind Holds at World Cup Leave Time For Mischief
The Canopy Piloting World Cup started in South Africa on Wednesday and is due to conclude on Sunday. So far 2 rounds of Speed have been completed and, with the exception of 4 re-jumps, 2 rounds of Distance have also been completed. This included Canadian competitor and PD Factory Team member Jay ‘Sexy Pony Tail’ Moledzki smashing the World Record with an impressive 175.92m on round 2 on his Comp Velo 79. This currently leaves him in first position with almost a 40 point lead ahead of some strong competition. The 5,000′ elevation and changing wind conditions have resulted in a large number of zero scores.
For skydivers, weather holds can be the most dangerous time, particularly at a Canopy Piloting World Cup. For some, there was time to kill, and the Australian delegation challenged some of the other nations to an improvised game of indoor (well, in-tent) cricket. Others took the time to get some much needed rest, particularly following the early starts we’ve been having with 0530 take-offs. Here are a few pictures of competitors resting while they wait for the winds to drop.
World Records in the Making – Zoom Zoom
After a bit of a rough start with challenging conditions and a series of serious injuries, it seems that the World Cup of Canopy Piloting at Johannesburg Skydiving Club is finally on a good roll.
British competitor Alastair Macartney commented in his Facebook status update this morning that Brian Vacher (UK competitor and a member of the PD Factory Team) had just set a National Distance Record – and then as a side note mentioned that Jay Moledzki (Canadian competitor and also a well known member of the PD Factory Team) had gone on to set a new Distance World Record – 175.92 meters (still unofficial, pending FAI approval).
There are still plenty of competition rounds left to go so we might still see some exciting news from JSC.
For those of you that don’t care too much about Canopy Piloting, competition or world records – but do enjoy mischief and prankstery (yup, new word, I just invented it), we got something good coming. Just waiting on Prankster in Chief to find himself a good solid internet connection to transmit the pixels our way – stay tuned!
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