Tuesday 26 June

Last Updated 05 February 2012 03:17 PM

0600
Ah, the streets of Granada. A little longer than most Phoenix streets are wide, but far more intoxicating. Before I go to the inbox:

Here ye, here ye, the Webmaster hereby submits the following updates:

  • Thou shalt limit thy messages to competitors (sent via webmaestro@omniskore.com) to one per day (that means you too Z!) as the Webmaster is being swamped, yea deluged, with messages for teams. Make them count!
  • Thou may now send thy messages as regular email, as thy Webmaster has tweaked his printing parameters, and thou may retire thy reviled Word processor.
  • Thou shalt not complain about the speed or quality of the webcam lest thy Webmaster unplug it. Thy Webmaster hath not the time nor bandwidth to tweak it.
  • Thou shalt continue to send corrections and suggestions to thy Webmaster as he continues to seek divine perfection within these pages.
  • Thou shoes are untied.

Across the hall, I hear the Russian 8-way team manager paying $50 for the protest fee. This is going to be interesting, to say the least. On to this morning's email and golly there are 67 messages in my inbox so I will be back after a while...

...well, I suppose I knew this was coming, a reader writes: "How can you post all the scores up to date except for style & acc, sweet Jesus you even have CF scores updated, get with the program or don't boast about being able to be the web site of the world air games................."   to which I reply 1) You're getting what you paid for and 2) there are roughly 300 S&A competitors and I'm still working on typing them in and 3) this is most definitely NOT the site of the World Air Games. Otherwise, thank you everyone else for all the kind remarks, we do appreciate it.

Attention Freestyle/Skysurf fans, they have finally started jumping and we will have scores soon. Also this morning, FS 8-Way.

The Russian 8-Way Protest

Late yesterday, the Russian 8-way FS team missed a manifest call and took a 0 (zero) on round 3. Earlier, the same thing happened to Brazil. This morning, Russia filed a protest, and 9 out of the 10 8-way team captains petitioned meet management to allow them to jump round 3, citing difficulty in hearing the manifest calls over the public address system. France declined to sign the petition. Stay tuned for more on this controversy... 

A reader asks: "Don't you think the competitors will perform better or more at their peak if they got to do more than ONE jump a day? I know that this is a huge meet, but surely that can't be the standard operating procedure for an International Event? What do the competitors think?"   Well, the competitors definitely think they'd rather be doing more than one jump per day (and in fact many have; the Freeflyers did three in one morning). What we're seeing here is a combination of the effects of running at least 13 events with around 900 competitors at an air base that has never hosted a skydiving competition. It's not easy, but I think if the weather holds the pace will pick up and we'll see the FS competitors doing three or four in a day.

Here is your style coverage. ;-)

Brazil 8-Way creeps

The dubbing center (above) and DZTV in the hangar (below).

1000
8-Way FS is finally on a call four round 4. CF rotations just finished theirs, and those speedy Russians have a commanding lead. Speedy? Their throw-away round is one less than their own world record right now.

[T1, in a rare moment of having no higher priorities, sees T2 wander out the door and swoops the OmniHelm.]

What a week for a geek!!! I've got six scoring systems here, two for FS, one for CF, two for the 3D events, and one down at the other end of the air base for Style. In addition to supporting all the software running on those systems, I've also got special software running on the chief judges' PC for printing standings, plus an automatic team photo system for DZTV, plus an automatic Internet score and standings posting system (the latter covering FS and CF only, since I haven't yet figured out how to convert 3D scores to HTML). Knock on wood, three days into the meet everything is running smoothly!

And oh yeah, there's a little skydiving going on here. We've all heard the umpteen pros and cons about hosting all the events at the same place at the same time, but it sure is nice being able to watch CF, FS, Freefly, Freestyle, and Skysurf throughout the day. And if I get bored with any of those I can catch a ride down to the S&A venue and watch the loopers & stompers loop & stomp! (btw I did 40 or 50 style training jumps about 12 years ago, and was amazed at how hard it is. Now watch Omar go do a 5-second set on his very first try...)

FS-8 now being judged, we're halfway through round 4. Russia is up now ... let's see how they perform after last night's speed bump ... smooth out the door, fast diamonds, watch that Taj!, they finish with a 17. We are still waiting for the jury to act on their protest from round 3. We will cut and paste those results the moment they are available!

1100
8-Way FS round 4: Everybody, for the most part, had good jumps. I had France with a 17, but they busted to a 15. Russia had some stellar 3-D Diamond > Diamonds and finished with a 17, as did USA a few minutes later.

NOTICE! It has come to our attention that someone put notices in all the teams' boxes saying "For communication with WAG 2001 contact webmaestro@omniskore.com." THIS IS INCORRECT! That email address is strictly for messages intended for Ted & Tim and for messages to the competitors. WE DO NOT PROVIDE ANY OFFICIAL COMMUNICATION.  Thank you!

Sorry to shout like that, I'd rather watch some skydiving....we are on a short break now and we have FS 4-way coming soon...

And now, some photos from Ken Hansen:

Shannon reporting back to Earth Line of the Norway girls

Horse play in the hallway - Craig Girard, Eric Taylor, and Steffen Schiedek

The Swedish Delegation

And what we have over here to the right is a picture of the petition signed by 9 of the 10 8-way FS teams supporting a round-3 jump for Brazil and Russia. I have not heard a resolution on this protest and petition; right now the zeroes stand as posted. It is too bad this happened. There are very strong arguments on both sides. I am trying to get some of them to write about it in their own words. 1330 UPDATE - The picture is now gone, because I have just been informed that the French delegation now supports the petition and all the 8-way FS competitors are in support of Russia and Brazil getting to jump round 3. But will it happen? We shall see.

What time is it? Why yes it is, it's lunch time!  How kind of you to notice. We shall return shortly.

IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT - Email messages to competitors & delegations should now be sent to saramallo@hotmail.com for placement in their mail boxes. You may all of course continue to shower praise and salutations to us here at webmaestro@omniskore.com. Thank you!

1400
The ladies finished round three; the USA girls suffered another bust (on a wrong-grip photon) and Norway has charged into the lead with another strong jump. For you Style & Accuracy fans, we finally have some results posted, but it's all Women's Style (that's all they've posted here so far). We'll update those scores as we get them.

Ted want's to know if there are any Delphi programming gurus out there. He's trying to figure out why his NetPost program keeps stopping; the FTP component keeps locking up. Help anyone?

NEWS FLASH   NEWS FLASH   NEWS FLASH

In a 9 to 1 vote, the competition jury has returned a ruling in favor of Russia and Brazil jumping their round 3. While this writer considers this ruling a bad precedent, it is undoubtedly a very good thing for the competition to proceed and finish without a dark cloud of bad feelings and "what ifs." This is a terrific example of competitors taking control and making their voices heard. Kudos to them and to all the 8-way teams that supported the protest. On with the competition!

Here's a nice bit to add to this story. This morning, Martial Ferre of the French 8-way team approached Dan BC and said, and I paraphrase here, "If Russia does not jump round 3, we go up with you guys and do a nice 16-way." This, of course, would have given both teams (USA and France) zeros on the jump, and brought Russia back into the ball game (not to mention giving Netherlands the lead). It should also be noted that no one fought harder on behalf of the Russians (and Brazil) than the USA 8-way. Hats off, big time, to France and USA for fighting for the spirit of competition. Remarkable. Cool. Outstanding.

I have received several emails from people who would like to hear some more about freefly, freestyle and skysurf. To be honest, there really isn't much I can say. It is difficult to spend time watching the DZTV for it because the judges watch it twice and then spend forever scoring it while nothing plays on the screen. Meanwhile, I have a zillion other updates to work on and FS going on the other DZTV mixer. Simply put, there just isn't time. We provide the scores and team photos, but really anything more is going to have to come from the FF/FR/SK community. We would welcome other writers bringing there stuff in to tell you about it. Come on over!

[Read between the lines: We're FS junkies all the way and that's all we want to watch. It's why OmniSkore was invented ;-) ]

The Fun Flag returns!FS 4 round 3: Go Italy! Nice skydive - a 17. Quick D-bips on that one. UK! A 20! Most impressive, boys! France, a 20 as well, and it will be tough for anyone to top that score, because it marks the beginning of the Diamond > Bunyip, a pretty slow block. And now, the Norgies. Very impressive 3D photons! Will they get that last bunyip in for a 21? Close - not quite, just missed it, a 20 too. And USA - a very quick start out the door, it looks like they just might YES they get the bunyip in time for a 21. A very smooth, clean skydive. You gotta love their style. 

Up next, Women's FS4 round 4. Just finished while I was working on more of Ken's photos, Norway and Sweden have picked up another point on their rivals with a pair of 13s. And being the former vidiot that I am, I have to say that the UK Women's camera flyer is doing one helluva job. Beautiful, steep video. Norway's is excellent as well.

Some more pictures from Ken Hansen.

Above: The top four women teams are locked in a heated battle.

The DZTV crowd is getting HUGE.

Competing while healing. She's tough!

We're having fun now!

Attention FF/FR/SK fans! I think we found a bits writer for you! Check back for more info later!

Meet Director Extraordinaire Patrice GirardinLadies and gentlemen and skydivers, I present to you a man whose job I am overwhelmingly pleased to avoid, Mr. Patrice Girardin. He is the Meat Meet Director for these parachuting games, and he is the lucky first Meet Director to run all of them at the same time. Patrice, we salute you! Now get back to work!

4-way FS round 4 continues now after a break...

...a reader writes "Do the camera flyers on a women's FS team have to be women as well?" The answer is no; in fact, only one of the women teams has a female camera flyer (South Africa, if I'm not mistaken). 

"The Spirit of Competition." It's one of those clichés whose meaning tends to diminish with over use, but I just got back from the hangar where I was almost overwhelmed with it.

Not pictured: A whole lot of loud supporters waving flags, taking pictures, high-fiving teams, and making like this is a world meet or something. And it's only round four!

Okay, the Big Guns are up again, France was on a real nice pace until a glitch closing a Zigzag > Marquis cost them a second or more and -- wait, over on screen 2, GBR just put up a very nice 17 -- France gets a 18, and USA, wow another sweet one for 19 points. Now Norway, smiling big in the door, they are charging hard OOH that last point was just out, 18 points! That USA squad is looking sharp, and Norway isn't far behind. Okay, I've been in this room for 14 straight hours, and I do believe it's BEER-THIRTY. Thanks for visiting and see you tomorrow!

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