Saturday 12th September - The Final Day

At the end of the day, on Friday,  competitors gathered in the Creep Hangar to watch the last round in Formation Skydiving VFS and 8-Way and in Artistic Events, Freestyle Skydiving and Freefly. The end of a long day for everyone with the 4-Way jumping in the morning, at the end of which a similar crowd formed to watch the judging of the final round. We then had a long stand-down due to the altitude restrictions imposed on the Drop Zone by Schipol Air Traffic Control. 
 

After lunch that time was used for the Competitors' Meeting chaired by Anne Mine Moller Petersen, Alternate Delegate for Denmark and the only committee member present.  She talked through the rule changes for 2015, more housekeeping than major changes, and these were accepted by the competitors present.  There was some discussion about the failure at this competition for all teams to make their practice jump (which had been paid for), mainly due to the height restrictions and the poor weather in the days before the competition started.   The major item of discussion was whether all teams should be given the opportunity to jump 10 rounds at a First Category Event, even if they did not make the cut   There seemed to be general agreement from the meeting that the committee work on finding a way that this will happen, without affecting the completion of a competition, i.e. maybe after the two final rounds are jumped.  Anne Marie asked that this be circulated around the complete competitive community for further comments and ideas to be directed to the committee before the next IPC Meeting in early 2016.

There was also a question about the scoring system used at this championships, as the competitors are used to a much clearer and better "public" display of the judging and scoring.  The bid from the organiser stated that they intended to use the CamScore System, even though it was no long in production or supported by the original creators.  This system had been purchased by the Dutch and they had a local jumper (computer wizz kid) who had worked with it, maintained it, and it was used successfully at other competitions in the Netherlands.  

Unfortunately all other scoring systems have moved on since its creation, in terms of robustness, ease of use by judges and the Event Judges and calculation of the scores and final results.  Formation Skydiving was more fortunate than the Artistic Events who found they had to calculate the scores for each jump manually.  All the these problems made for long sessions in the judging room, not helped by the fact that Formation Skydiving and Artistic Events judges shared the same small room divided by a curtain.  Speed on the other hand shared with the Jury.

In the end everyone coped and the competition was completed a day early.  After a lot of work engendered by a system that could not cope with the differences between a World Cup, (open to anyone approved by their NAC) and a European Championships (which is a competition of Nations) the scores had to be manually collated and finalised. This procedure was overseen by the Chief Judges and Jury, who were content with the scores that were produced. Fortunately Speed bring their own scoring system which performed as it always does, well.

Today the skies are filled with fun jumpers whilst the organisation finalises everything and prepares for the prize-giving at 6.00 p.m. this afternoon - to be followed by a closing banquet and more partying, although many teams had reason to celebrate and party last night.

We will publish pictures of the prize giving on this website over tomorrow and Monday (travelling home).  We have the videos from all Formation Skydiving and Artistic Events jumped, and these will be uploaded to YouTube over the coming week and a link put on this site.  So watch this space.

As always thanks to everyone who worked so hard to make this World Cup and European Championships possible - without the volunteers and those officials who give up their time to work long hours so that the competitors can compete to the best of their ability, it would not happen.

CONGRATULATIONS to the Artistic Events Medal winners and Champions

and the Speed Skydiving Medal Winners and Champions

Over the coming week not only will the Videos be available on YouTube, we will also load all the pictures we have from this competition, including all the delegations and their competitors. The poor internet connection (with over 300 skydivers with their phones, tablets and laptops - would put a strain on any internet connection) had made it impossible to achieve during the competition.