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...
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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.
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Here is your style
coverage. ;-) |
Brazil 8-Way creeps |
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The dubbing center
(above) and DZTV in the hangar (below). |
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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: |
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Shannon
reporting back to Earth |
Line of the
Norway girls |
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Horse play in the hallway
- Craig Girard, Eric Taylor, and Steffen Schiedek |
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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 ;-) ] 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. |
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Above: The top four women teams are
locked in a heated battle. |
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The DZTV crowd is getting HUGE. |
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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!
Ladies
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.
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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