Boel's 3D Bits

By Boel Janérus (Freefly Competitor, Sweden)

Thursday and Friday, June 28-29

A lot of pulse
There have been a lot of tense nerves here at the World meet in Granada. All the 3D top teams have been doing their last jumps and in many of the events there were some really tight final rounds. Just a short moment ago the judges were starting to judge the last round of freefly and then the power went off. I can tell you there has been some freeflyers here with a lot of pulse.

Stefania won with 0.1
Among the female freestylers the excitement is over by now. Emanuelle Celicout was only 0.2 points ahead of Stefania Martinengo before the last round. Then Stefania got a 9.3 score while Emanuelle stopped at 9.0. That means that Italy won over France with only 0.1 points. That is close, to say the least.

It was Stefania's free routines that got her the gold medal, while Emanuelle Celicout had stronger compulsory jumps.

The compulsory got Fradet the gold
The male skysurf event is just completed, too. Eric Fradet took the lead in the men's skysurf after being even with Valeri Rozov for a while and it's just amazing how similar their scores have been. They both got exactly the same scores for the third, fourth, sixth and seventh rounds. But it was the fifth, compulsory round, that decided who would win this time. Fradet got 7.3 points while Rozov had to settle with 6.4.

So what will happen with the skysurf event now that it's not included in the X-games anymore? Noboby knows, but many of the more knowledgeable people I have talked to are worried that skysurfing is about to diminish and disappear. Many of the best skysurfers we have seen during the last couple of years aren't even here.
The female skysurfers aren't done yet, but there is no question about who will win. Tanya Garcia-O'Brien has a total of 51.0 right now and Judith Graile is way behind with a total of 36.2.

Freestyle Danes still rocking
In the male freestyle event the Danes will most probably win. Olav Zipser is right behind them and we are waiting for the results of the seventh round, but Nils Predstrup and camera flyer Martin Kristensen have showed such strong routines with smooth and consistent interaction and technically demanding moves that I am pretty sure that they already have the gold in their hand. There are 2.2 points separating them for the moment and it would take a lot to change that now.

Tense waiting for freefly results
All the freefly teams have finished the last round and we just received the scores. As expected, Olav's Freefly Circus became winners. They got 61.5 total points while Arizona Freefly got the silver with 60.7 and Babylon fell back to a third place with 59.6 points.

The Circus's last two rounds, both the same free routine, were amazingly tight and visually pleasing to watch. After flipping out the door they do a clean synchronized belly track, and then turn a clown compressed around in a 720 degree cartwheel. I have already told you about how they do a 360 degree turn with a stable feet to feet dock and about Mike cartwheeling over Rook's shoulders. At the end of this routine they build a belly cat, turn it down into a double head down, then pass the camera tracking in line while Rook holds up his arm in a victory sign. They are well worth a gold medal after this, I must say.

Silver medallists Arizona Freefly's routines have been very tight and stable. They use many of the compulsory moves in their free jumps and they started their seventh jump with a double head down carve where Omar Alhegelan and Steve Curtis actually let their heads meet during the move. Very nice indeed.

As I wrote earlier, the French Babylon team definitely have brought some new ideas into this event. Their performance was excellent during the first jumps, but in the fourth round they lost some of the strength and focus and the judges were surprisingly hard on them giving them a very low score compared to their, after all, very skillful performance. Anyway I think they are the most talked about team after this competition.

I have heard some people drop skeptical comments about their ballet-like, stretched-out and muscular flying style, some saying that it's more freestyle than freeflying. But personally I think their border-crossing style feels new and innovative.

So now the freefly event is part of the World meet family and Freefly Circus just made history winning the first gold medal. Way to go!

1700 Update

Well, now we know for sure that the Danish team Funkflyz won the freestyle competition. And not only did they win, they also got the highest score for one single jump (9.5 for their sixth round) that any team received at this World meet. Congratulations, Martin and Nils!