Sunday 24 June
0600
Last night they had an almost-impromptu opening ceremony
(planned at the very late stages) and you can see some pictures of
it HERE. Coming soon:
the 4- and 8-way draws and some real competition scores. Stay
tuned!
0800
It's SHOWTIME! Now taking off: 8-Way FS and CF Sequential. The
draws are posted (4-way and 8-way
FS) and the CF draws are posted on the CF
results page.
1000
Almost done with round one of 8-way FS. France jumped first,
and they nearly funneled their exit, but recovered nicely with a
respectable 16 points. They do not have nearly as many training
jumps as Russia (I am guessing) and I think the real race for the
gold will be between USA and Russia. USA 8 has not made any
training jumps this year, but they are the defending champions and
highly experienced competitors. An interesting observation that
may work in their favor: 8-way is out of the Twin Otter (4-way is
out of the Casas, a ramp exit). This comes as a surprise to me (I
thought all FS was going to be from the Casas). Will Russia
finally catch up to the Americans and take the sword? Round one
finishes shortly...
...but while we're waiting, I need to emphasize again that all
you viewers out there are welcome to send teams/competitors
messages through me at webmaestro@omniskore.com,
but please, they *MUST* be in the form of attached word documents
or RTF files. No zipped files please. I print these messages and
drop them in the delegation's distribution box. Thanks!
...and back to 8-way, Russia looks REALLY good, and posts
a clean 19, a very good jump...USA 8, on their first jump together
since the World Cup, look very nervous through the first page, but
they pick up the pace and finish with a 19, they *JUST* missed the
20th on the freeze frame. Wow! Okay, they got the jitters out,
let's see what happens next.
But, 8-way FS is not the ONLY sequential going on. The crew
dogs are doing 4-way, and after two rounds, it looks like the USA
and France are once again going to have a knock-down drag-out
fight for the gold medal. I think those USA folks may be a teeny
bit tired of winning silver medals and they really want to sit a
little higher on the medal platform. This will another fun one to
watch, yes?
1300
Most teams have jumped round 2 of 8-way FS, but USA and Russia
will not be doing theirs' today, Spain as well. 4-way FS is now on
call, and CF has stopped for the day.
Earlier I said USA 8 looked nervous on the beginning of round
one; I think "unsure" would be a better word. How fast
do we go? But they got the gears cranking after they figured out
how fast to turn them. Most of the other 8-way FS teams look very
good as well; there was some fine skydiving this morning.
1500
HOLY FREEZE FRAME MEET MAN! Check out those standings
in 4-way FS (but don't stop there!). USA/FRA/NOR all came out
of the gates with guns blazing on full automatic and finished with
19 points each. That is the BEST round one performance I can
remember by any team, and they all three did it. Oh boy this is
going to be a good one. Almost the same thing is going on in CF
Sequential with USA and France. Russia looks like they may run
away in CF Rotations, an event they've been dominating the last
few years.
It looks like they are just now starting up with the 3D events,
I'm going to run down and check out La
Gran Carpa Blanca...
...after taking a stroll outside I find out that we are on a
wind hold...
...whilst the weather doth hold us, I think after looking at
the 4-way draw it looks like one of the slowest ones I've ever
seen, with only round 10 looking remotely fast. And the ramp exit
is giving some of the videographers and ALL of the judges a tough
go at it. It's a tough exit for the camera flyer to time right,
and the judges can't see the edge of the door and must go by
movement to start the clock. The result is high "split"
times on the exit, and sometimes they take a half dozen or more
tries to get the split time down. This is important in those cases
where the last point is right on the time line, which is more
often than you might think.
Hey Tedro, what time is it? He didn't say beer thirty, so it's
time to check the mail...
A Blond Joke
Hey, these judges are a real hoot sometimes. This one from an
Aussie:
A blond is on a flight when she gets up from her seat in coach,
strolls up, and sits down in the first class section. A flight
attendant tells her "Sorry, you haven't paid for first class,
you have to go back and sit in coach." And the blond says
"Oh no, I'm blond, I'm pretty, and I'm sitting in first class
all the way to Montreal." So the flight attendant gets the
copilot to talk to her. "Ma'am, you didn't pay for first
class, you're going to have to move back to coach" the
copilot tells her. The blond replies "Oh no, I'm blond, I'm
pretty, and I'm sitting in first class all the way to
Montreal." So the copilot goes to the captain and explains
the situation. "I'll handle it," he says, "I'm
married to a blond, and I speak blond." So the captain goes
back and whispers something in the blond's ear. She immediately
gets up and moves back to coach. "That's amazing!" says
the flight attendant, "What did you tell her?" And the
captain says "I just told her that the first class cabin
isn't going to Montreal."
...tee hee... with that, I am informed that FS4 is released for
the day, while FS8 ESP, RUS, and USA are on standby...
1800
They just called it a day, the winds are still howling and
we're retiring to the bar. It was a good start and I'm thinking
it's only going to get better. See you tomorrow!
Ciao!
-t1
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