Sunday, September 26
This was a Nationals with much to remember: The new 4-way class structure validated by the numbers. Airspeed with the top two medals in the Open class. The Advanced class with a wonderful battle to the finish. The Intermediate class with 32 teams, four of which finished with an average of 10 or higher.
The 10-way event, in its second year under the new rules, a blast. No exit BS. Good old fashioned skydiving. Pink Panty Patrol winning the CG Godfrog award. The Knights FX / Derek Thomas "guest team" fiasco... The awards proceeded smoothly, starting with 4-way and working on up. It was particularly exciting to see Passion 8 on stage with Airspeed and the Golden Knights. Eight girls and sixteen guys, all a real class act. One very long standing ovation. As the 16-way awards approached, I was fearing the worst. Protests and hard feelings had been flying all over the place, with lots of finger pointing and threats. I heard talk of Deguello and Sebastian STI refusing to take the stage if Knights FX was awarded the gold. So I held my breath when Chris announced that after a lot of grief and wrangling with the rules and protests, the winner of the 1999 US Nationals of 16-way Formation Skydiving was... ...Deguello.
So the Golden Knights...they went from being on the verge of going home empty handed to winning gold in 16- and 8-way in a matter of hours. And Gold Team won the Overall Champions award to boot! I'm not going to forget the end of these nationals any time soon. I hope Corowa provides as much excitement, hopefully without as much controversy! So it's Sunday morning now and the judges are cleaning up the aftermath around me as I close out these tidbits. Thank you all for visiting, and of course be sure to come back for the World Meet. It should be a great show! - Tim Wagner |
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