August
19 Aug 2007
0700
Well, the clouds have appeared. It is overcast as far as the eye can see. There is a strong thunderstorm moving across Kolomna now. Valdimir says today is a big religous holiday and the weather is always bad on holidays.
Aerotrolls just posted a 20 in round 4.
Most teams that had busts were because of incomplete separation or the ever present brain lock that lead to skipped points.
On round 4 there were many teams that took the wrong grip when going from the cat to the stairstep. Instead of taking the stairstep grip, they would take the bipole/donut grip.
0900
Round 4 is now finished being judged. JetBats has now moved into 2nd place. SkyTek did an impressive 27 points. AirDance1 dropped its pace and was busted twice for the wrong stairstep grip.
Still overcast and it has stopped raining.
0930
Ooops, I hate it when that happens....
Block 6 compressed accordian to compressed accordian has a typo in it. The second point should be the same comp acc as the first one. The judges said they just saw that error today and that none of the competitors asked about it. They are also not busting any team - no matter which handed comp. acc. they do at the bottom of the block.
1030
A light drizzle is back with lots of low, lying scum cloud all around. It does not look good.
Aerotrolls had a collision between the photographer and the two-way. It was enough to bust apart the compressed accordian they pulled for the exit. The next couple of points were OS (off-screen). Timing and presentation - that's all it is, right??? How hard can it be?? ;)
Airdance1 lost some time on the hill when they bumped each other and created some big separation. They posted a 15 that was busted to 13 by no sep between the two blocks. This cost them 3rd place. Menshe ne imelo smysla won the tie because they scored a high round of 22, to AirDance1's 21 high round.
Jetbats posted a clean 17, very nice.
SkyTek scored a 19, with the 20th point ohhh.. so very close. Great work.
1230
It is pouring rain now.... The weather forcast is not promising for today, but it looks like the clouds will blow through by tommorrow.
1830
The award ceremony for 2-way is supposed to start soon. Here are some of the 10-way teams playing charades during the cloud and rain hold.
1900
10-way is going up. There is a clear patch coming towards the DZ with just a little bit of scum clouds low.
2015
I've been drafted as event judge for 10-way. That means I have two reasons to miss getting team pics. (The other reason is that the calls are only done in Russian. Fun loads get the bi-lingual announcements.)
Some of these teams are practiced teams. They are very good. Russian rules are different than US rules. In Russia you can pull a piece from a no-show, behind the line exit. Before building the formation you have to show complete separation (10 bodies).
2100
The 2-way awards were presented. Here is a picture of the winners.
Omnibits
Jan Meyer, Chief Engineer and Webmaster