OmniSkore! coverage of the 2007 US Nationals.
Omnibits by Jan Meyer

5 am Sept. 16
Good Morning. Today it is much warmer -only 47 degrees.
vRW starts today. There are great expectations of the battle between Mandrin and Arizona Arsenal.
There is one more round of CF 2-way to jump, then on to CF 4-way and 8-way speed.

7:15 am
The judges show a 16 for round 7 of FSC-2. That's only the preliminary score. It could get busted down. The world record is 14. We are anxiously waiting the final decision. Confirmed to 16. The judge panel was 3 national judges. Later today it will be rejudged by a panel af 5 FAI judges to make it recognized by the FAI. Congratulations to Chris Gay, Mark Gregory and Keith Thivierge on video.


8 am
I snuck over to the dubbing station to look at the vRW. Wow! The dives look awesome. Sara Bennett really knows how to shoot the dives to show all the grips, even on exit.

8:30 am
Another CF round complete. FSC-2 has a hefty lead over Clean Air. Impaired and Stuck in Lodi are tied for 3rd place.
Meet Director, Eric Deren, is also competing in vRW. He is on Throw 'em Together.
So far, the busts are mostly because of the video angle. Not all the grips are shown.

9 am
I talked with Keith Thivierge about his CF video and how awesome it was. He said he only got that close with people he knew very well. The gotcha of being that close is that if the people have to bail and turn towards the video, there is not much time to react. Keith pulls brakes and floats out of the problem area.
Mandrin looks great. They get a preliminary 16. There is a lot of discussion over there at the Taurus Omni-station about what is and is not a legal grip. Pia rounded up Eric and a clarification was given to the judges. The confirmed score for Mandrin is 16.
Preliminary for AZ Arsenal is 18. And the judges confirm 18.
Faction gets a preliminary 12. It is busted to 9 for one incorrect video angle and two incorrect formations.
Round 8 of CF 2-way has just being judged.
Eric came in here, asked for a bunch of protest forms and then ran to catch his plane. Hummm....

10 am
Impaired posts a 9 in round 8 that had one bust. (CF)
Train Wreck posts a 6 to take a strong lead over Throw 'em Together for 2nd place vrw. Drive gets another big bust dive. It was a 12 busted to 8, all video angles, except for one inter bust.
Meanwhile over on the Virgo Omni-station, Stuck in Lodi gets a 0 because of non-judgable video. The photographer was too far away for the judges to clearly see the grips. It would have been an 8. That's a bummer for my favorite Lodi team. Their throwaway round is now the goose-egg. The old throwaway of 9, gets into their total. I believe Impaired and Stuck in Lodi are tied. Impaired wins because their highest round was a 12 to Stuck in Lodi's 11.
Back on the vRW front. Mandrin gets 11 in round 2, while AZ Arsenal only gets an 8. Mandrin is now in the lead by 1. (Ohhhh-- such excitment !!! ) Let's see if Faction will have better video angles. They get an 11 busted to 10. Only the first point had a video angle problem.

11 am
Drive gets a 5 in round 3, with only two busts. Will Pesek wants to make sure that the record for the mosts busts is established and maintained from now on. Drive is still in the lead in Intermediate.
Mandrin scores a 13 in round 3. Arsenal only gets an 8.
Faction gets a preliminary 12, with 4 busts, that gives them 8. Drive and Faction are leading the race for most busts. Faction has 8 busts and Drive is close behind with 5.

12:30 pm
Drive posted a no-bust round of 9. The photographer moved to a position lower than the team for most of the dive. It was a great view of the jigger-jigger and buddy-buddy blocks.
Clean Air posted an 11 in round two of 4-way Sequential CF. They are off to a great start and are making Redline work hard to catch them. Redline posts an 8.
Arsenal was busted to an 8 with a video angle and an incomplete separation. Arsenal came out of the gate very strong. They have to have a meeting of the minds and 'Fly the Golden Beam' as Pat Works would say.
Faction gets a preliminary 7, but it looks like there are some busts on it. The judges call it a 6 with 3 busts for the usual reasons. That makes 11 busts total for Faction.
Mandrin gets 12 busted to an 11 for incomplete separation.

1:30 pm
More drama on the DZ. This time a judge noticed that the vRW rules were not being applied properly. The vRW rules say that each viewing must end in a freeze frame, whereas the FS rules say that the 3rd viewing may have an optional freeze frame. The jury of Christopher Irwin, Jan Meyer and Larry Bagley met with Chief Judge Judy Celeya. The jury's decision was to rejudge rounds 1-4 of vRW, open and intermediate. The judges properly viewed the jumps with freeze frame applied to all viewings from round 5 onward.

2 pm
Arizona Arsenal just had a 12 busted down to a 9 in round 5 all because of bad video angles. Faction got a 9 busted to a 6.

I think maybe some research needs to be done about the best viewing angle for each of the vRW formations. A group could build and hold each of the formations to allow a photographer to move around and record from many positions. Then in post-dive video debriefs, the 'optimal' angle could be found. Then once this is done for all of the formations the photographer has to plan how to move from one optimal position to the other.
Even with all of the video busts, the skydiving by these teams is awesome.

2:30 pm
Re-judging of rounds 1-4 of vRW has started. The same judging panels for each round will be used too. I saved all the old data files to see what changes. ;)
Five FAI judges will be judging the 2-way CF world record to make it an official claim - soon.

After round 1, intermediate, was rejudged, Train Wreck gained one point.
Mandrin loses one point on round 1.

4:30 pm
Sorry for the long break... One system acted up, then I was called to jury duty (again), all while trying to snap pics of the CF teams at the loading area and seeing if I could sneak in the dub of the WR dives. I might have to do the streaming videos over night at the motel room.

On round 2 Mandrin gained one point, Faction gained a point on round one and two. Drive picked up one point.

The protest was Redline contesting the judges interpretation of the complete separation rule. They ended up withdrawing their protest and said the judges made a bad call.

4:45 pm
The 5 FAI judges are now judging the CF 2-way WR jump. The panel is Judy Celaya, Barry McAuley, Bob Charters, Ray Williams, Pia Breggen. They posted a clean 16 points in time.

5:45 pm
After the rejudge of round 3, Mandrin loses 3 points and Arizona Arsenal gains one.

6:45 pm
Awards for AE are happening. Round 6 of vRW will be judged tommorrow. The last of CF 4-way and CF speed 8-way happen tommorrow also.
CP starts tommorrow too.