2009 Collegiate Championships Blog/News

8:30 a.m.: Good morning everyone, it's a beautiful frosty day here at Skydive Spaceland! 6-way speed has rocked and rolled round 1, and as promised we're switching back to 4-way and vertical formation skydiving.

Scores are now updated through round 3 of 4-way open. VTSD is kicking butt and taking names; they've opened up a 7-point lead over Air Force Groove, who is 11 points up on West Point Apocalypse. Anything could certainly happen with three rounds to go, but it will be a tall order to make up 7 or more points on VTSD to knock them off the top.

Four-way advanced has almost all round 3 scores posted as well, and right now it's Air Force Impulse on top with a total of 34 points. West Point Vigilantes are hoping to make up the 4 points separating them, and Air Force Eminence trails Vigilantes by two.

Two-way formation skydiving is now complete, with West Point Dance Machine rocking a hot 50 points in round 6 to take the gold! They were actually outscored by 5 points in round 3 by West Point Prestige Worldwide, who killed it with a 63 busted to a 55. But Dance Machine had outscored Prestige by 9 points in the previous round... Final scores: Dance Machine: 91 (yup, that's a 30.33-point AVERAGE), Prestige Worldwide 86, and West Point Bullge 72 (just ahead of West Point Havoc, who scored 70 points in total).

Congratulations, everyone!

I'd like to apologize for the delay in getting yesterday's scores up online... we were having some technical difficulties with our website hosting. All fixed now! :-)

Photos coming soon!

11:45 a.m.: Thanks for your patience, we now have three lovely videos for your viewing pleasure:

• VTSD's 4-way open round 1 (really slick moves from the tail on the 5-A transition), 19 points
• Air Force Impulse's 4-way advanced round 3, 12 points
• West Point Prestige Worldwide's 2-way formation skydiving round 3, 55 points (busted from a 63)

12:15 p.m.: We're trying to get as many rounds in of the remaining events as possible; both Otters are flying competition loads and we're up to about load 20.

12:35 p.m.: Rocking and rolling! We've got all of 2-way VFS jumped except for maybe a rejump or two, 4-way competitors who haven't finished their last three rounds are working on that, and 6-way speed competitors who aren't doing 4-way are getting ready to go up. We're planning to get more sport accuracy jumped today as well, and if all the stars, moons, planets, Otters, and Caravans line up properly, we'll end the competition with the last round of classic accuracy.

We've got most of the team photos done, but we're still missing teams 405, 101, and 6-way teams 601, 607, 608, 609, and 611. Check out the team photos when you have a chance, there's some creativity in posing going on there...

Currently it's 53°F out here and quite nice for a day that started out with persistent ice on my windshield. Hoping to have some photos and more scores up shortly!

1:40 p.m.: Photos from yesterday and today!

2:35 p.m.: We've got 2-way vertical formation skydiving scores! And we don't just have a few of them, we've got them ALL! Enturbulators bested the Sky Monkeys (U.S. Air Force Academy) by one point to win the gold with 54 points, and another USAFA team, the Krispy Robots, takes bronze with a 49. Congrats, everyone, nice flying! We'll get some video of that out to you shortly.

This just in, VTSD has unofficially scored a 31 in round 5! Draw: O-6 (satellite - cat+acc). Can't wait to see what they do with round 6 (P-B-J)... anyone want a sandwich? :-)

3:25 p.m.: We've got rounds 4 and 5 of 4-way completely judged, and VTSD continues to widen their lead in the open class, besting Air Force Groove by 7 points in round 4 and 13 points in round 5 (wow) to gain a current total of 104 points. That puts them ahead by 27 points after 5 rounds; looks like they don't want to be caught anytime soon...

Groove's total of 77 points puts them 7 points up on West Point Apocalypse, who is 23 points ahead of Air Force Epic. Barring some really interesting developments, it looks like the first three places might be pretty locked up in 4-way open.

In Advanced, Air Force Impulse topped their nearest neighbors West Point Vigilantes by 5 points in round 4 but lost one in round 5, keeping them in first by 8 points. The race is on for third, with West Point Abroad 8 points behind Vigilantes and Eminence and Vendetta tied only one point back.

3:45 p.m.: We've just heard an announcement that accuracy is complete, so the scores we have are now final. The last 4-way loads are in the air now, so all we have left to complete is 6-way. Stand by for more scores!

6:10 p.m.: Hey all, we're obviously done for the day... it's been a great day! We completed the meet with all 6 rounds of 4-way, all 3 rounds each of 2-way and 6-way, all 4 rounds of VFS, 3/4 rounds of classic accuracy, and 2/4 rounds of sport accuracy.

We apologize, again, for the delay in posting updates. Personal opinion from the blogger: Our webhost would benefit from a bat upside the head.

Photos from today...

 

6:30 p.m.: We're getting ready for the banquet! More photos tomorrow!