Saturday, 12th December

The Final day - and it is busy at the Palm DZ.  The morning started with the hot-air ship lifting off into the sunrise over the Dubai skyline.  Canopy Formations 2-Way are up and landing out at the Horse Race DZ.  Round 9 (Semi-Final) of 4-Way Open and 4-Way Female has completed and the last teams are being judged.  Airspeed, USA did a storming round scoring 30 points whilst Hayabusa, Belgium scored 27 - so now there are only 2 points between them going into the final round - nail biting stuff.

In the 4-Way Female event both top teams scored 25 points in Round 9.

The Accuracy event is continuing on the Beach DZ, but as the World Air Games only awards medals for Team Performance, the individual results are of interest only - although I am sure the athletes will count it.

After 5 rounds the Czech Republic are in the lead, followed by Russia and Belarus in the Male Event - China, Russia and Poland in the Female Event - Only the Junior event is for individuals.  At the moment in the Male event we have Yanan He, China then Sylvain Ferroni, France and Sebastian Graser, Austria in third - for the females it is Zhang Ling, China, Diana–Andrea Maris, Romania and Marya Chornaya, Belarus.

Artistic Events Freestyle has completed :  The Gold Medal winners are FRANCE with a total of 63.2 points:  Russia in Silver with 57.1 points and USA, Bronze with 56.4 points.  Congratulations to the Medal Winners and to all the competitors.

The 2-Way Canopy Formation Event has completed as the last round is judged.

France, 1st Russia 2nd and Sweden 3rd.  Interestingly all three top teams used the final round as their throw-away round, scoring their lowest scores.  Congratulations to all the Medal winners and all the competitiors.

Formation Skydiving 4-Way Open has finished and although the French Girls gained a point on the last round they could not make up for round 7 so the final result is Gold Medal USA, 227 ; Silver Medal, France 224 : Bronze Medal Canada 171.  Congratulations to all the medal winners and welcome Canada, a new team to this event for doing so well.

All events are finalising together so now the result of Canopy Formation 4-Way Rotations is much as expected with France in Gold Medal position with Russia in Silver and Belarus in Bronze.  Congratulations to all the medal winners and competitors.

Formation Skydiving, VFS has also completed with Canada taking the Gold Medal, France the Silver and Belgium the Bronze.  Again Canada are the surprise winners, doing so very decisively by 17 points, scoring more than France in 8 of the 10 rounds.  Again congratulations to all the medal winners and competitors.

The 4-Way Open Formation Skydiving is over - last round jumped and Belgium not only held their nerve, they scored 2 points more than USA completing the competition with 269 points.  The USA had one bust on the last point of the competition and ended up with 265 points.  Third place was Russia with 234 points.

The British 8-Way Team - courtesy of Chris Cook

The Judges are waiting for the videos to be downloaded for the last round of the Formation Skydiving 8-Way event to finish their duties for today.  The Accuracy judges are on their way back from the Beach DZ to the Palm for the final round of Accuracy and we have our first Prizegiving ceremony for the Speed Skydivers and Canopy Formations 2-Way Sequential and 4-Way Rotations at 13.30.  I said it was busy here today.

Speed Medal Winners Christian Labhart, SUI : Marco Wiederkehr, SUI : Michael Lovemore, GBR

Canopy Formations 2-Way Sequential Russia : France : Sweden

Canopy Formations 4-Way Rotations France : Russia : Belarus

Whilst the last round of the 8-Way was being judged the Prize-Giving took place for the Speed and Canopy Formations events.  In the end there were no surprises in the 8-Way with the Golden Knights, USA winning the Gold Medal on 222 points, Russia with Silver on 185 and France Bronze with 172.

We are now going into the final of the Accuracy Event, at the moment at the end of round 7 it is Male event; Russia 1st,Czech Republic 2nd and 3rd Belarus - for the Female event it is Russia 1st, China 2nd and Belarus 3rd - unfortunately due to re-jumps that were not possible to make the event ended with the 7th round placings.  .   In the Male Junior event Gold goes to Yanan He, China : Silver to Sebastian Graser, Austria and Bronze to Alnaqbi, UAE and for the Junior Females Gold went to Ling Zhang, China, Silver to Diana–Andrea Maris, Romania and Bronze Marya Chornaya, Belarus.  Congratulations to all the Medal Winners and competitors.

Artistic Events - Freestyle Skydiving Russia  -  France  -  U.S.A

Artistics Events - Freefly France  -  Russia  -  Great Britain

Formation Skydiving : 4-Way Female       France  -  USA  -  Canada

Formation Skydiving : 4-Way Open        USA  -  Belgium  -  Russia

Formation Skydiving : 8-Way          Russia  -  USA  -  France

Formation Skydiving : VFS        France  -  Canada  -  Belgium

Accuracy Landings  -  Male Team :  Czech Republic - Russia - Belarus

Accuracy Landings  -  Feale Team :  China - Russia - Belarus

Accuracy Landings  -  Junior Male :  China - Austria - UAE

Accuracy Landings  -  Junior Female :  Romania - China  - Belarus

The Final Prize-Giving of the World Air Games took place out on the arena set up for that and the closing ceremony out on the Palm DZ.  The Air Show to close the ceremony started during the final Prize giving and gave a very exciting and attractive back drop to the ceremony.  Thanks and praise was heaped on all who had worked so hard to make this wonderful event happen.  Thank you UAE, thank you to all the staff and officials who gave their time voluntarily for the sake of the Air Sports which are their "passion". 

The day had started with a hot airship rising above the Palm DZ and the day ended with a mass hot air baloon flight aiming to land at the Palm DZ - quite a spectacular end.