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Freefall Style puts the freefall skills of the athletes to a test. They have to perform a series of maneuvers against the clock. A typical "style series" is made up by combinations of four 360° turns and two back loops. The current world record in performing such a series is held by Frank Bernachot (FRA): 5.40 seconds to turn 360° to the left, 360° to the right, to execute a back loop, turn 360° left, 360° right, and execute the final back loop. Franck Bernachot (38 years, from Gap, 8500 jumps) was again a finalist at the 2000 World Parachuting Championships. After the last jump in the men's freefall style event, it was Franck's main opponent, the German Marco Pflüger (31, Granschütz, 5800 jumps), who proved to be the most consistent. In five jumps he recorded a total of 30.39 seconds. Marco was proclaimed World Champion for the first time ever. Franck Bernachot was second with 30.95 seconds, Jacques Baal (FRA) was third with 31.02. The Accuracy Landing event was governed by new rules, which called for the jumpers to face off in a one-against-one match system during the final rounds. On an Accuracy Landing jump the athletes leave the A/C and deploy their parachutes almost immediately, they then steer it to a precision landing on a mat, where they need to strike the center with a 3 cm diameter. An automatic measuring device reads out their scores. Men's accuracy was dominated by a strong Slovenian squad: Salkic Senad (SLO, 35, Radovijca, 7500 jumps) and Borut Erjavec (SLO, 33, Bled, 7000 jumps) came in second and first with an identical total score of 1 cm after 7 jumps, landing dead center on 6 jumps. Marco Pflüger was 6th in Accuracy Landing and proclaimed World Overall Parachuting Champion. The title in women's accuracy went to Monika Filipowska (POL, 27, Nowy
Targ, 3300 jumps) with 3 cm in 9 jumps, second was the Chinese Ning
Wei (23, Beijing, 3000 jumps) with 7 cm, and third Irena Avbelj (SLO,
34, Ljubljana, 5800 jumps), also with 7 cm. Irena won the overall title
(Style and Accuracy combined). Sunday October 1, 2000 At the very last moment (about 4 hours before our flight) Bram Lasschuit had to give his slot in the team to Harry due to personal circumstances. Harry didn't have to think twice to join the team. He packed his suitcases and came straight away to Schiphol Airport. The departure was too late but we probably had back-wind so no worries about the arrival in Tokyo. We felt like; plane in, plane out, bus in, bus out, train in, train out, bus in, bus out, plane in, plane out, etc. etc. We had 2 flights, 3 train rides and 6 bus trips with all our luggage so we were a kind of nackered on arrival. Tuesday October 3, 2000
Prices are "reasonable", around ¥ 800 ( 8$ USD) for a beer and 5 $ for a cup of coffee. I'll come back to this later this week.
Wednesday October 4, 2000 Today we made our first 2 jumps in Japan. Ise-Shima is located near the coast and therefore we expected some wind. We were right, there was enough wind for us. We hardly train in "No-Wind" circumstances so hopefully this wind will stay during the competition. Two of our team members are suspected to have defected from the Turkish team, this due to the suntan and their moustache (see the photo's of alias Ali and Achmed). Despite the few jumps we are satisfied with todays results. Later at the day the wind was to strong to continue training so we had some time to explore all features of the Hotel. And we can say it's acceptable. Not quite what we are used to but we think we can survive the coming two weeks. Especially the sauna, bubble bath and massage room is not too bad. Again we could team-up as a team with the traditional Japanese bathing clothes, the kimono's. Later this week we will also wear the Happi's, the coats the locals wear during festivals. On the right the fully automatic massage chairs Thursday October 5, 2000 The camera stayed in the Hotel today so we've no new pictures to add. Tomorrow I'll try to make some shots from the choppers and under canopy. So far we jumped from SA 350 helicopters (5 places) which seem to me like copies of the Ecureil (right spelling?) helicopters we have in Europe. The weather today was good for training, not too easy and not too difficult. Unfortunately only 3 Accuracy jumps but all with good results for all of us. At the end of the day Henny could make his first training jump in style. The score was 9,3 sec. which did not only surprise the team but even more Henny himself. Because the qualification for the competition is 10 sec. he can perform at least one competition jump in Classic Style. B.t.w. Harry also made his first attempt for style today when he tried to wave to Geert on one of his exits. You could see he has not a lot of experience with style because he started with a kind of back-loop instead of a flat turn. The organization just confirmed that tomorrow the CH 47 (double rotor Chinook) will be used for the training jumps of Accuracy. Even better for us for the pictures. If possible Henny will make another training jump in style. Accuracy is held in Ise-Shima and style in Toba. Two different sites which makes it pretty difficult to combine during training. Anyway at least we can jump. In the beginning we gave an indication about the costs here in Japan. Related to our standards Japan is extremely expensive. For me the most expensive country I've ever visited. Jumps are twice the price of Europe; Accuracy 20 $ and Style 30 $. Not everything has the same factor, it varies from 2 (jumps) to about 6 (drinks, food, etc.). A local bottle of wine costs ¥ 3000 (30 $). The reason for this, I guess, is that for me it looks like that in Japan everything is very well organized. Many more people are employed to do small parts of jobs of what we're used to. On the other hand those jobs are performed very well and are reliable. F.e. the busses are arranged by a lot of people but I've never been at a competition where the busses drive on a schedule that's on the minute. Japan is very, very clean. You won't find any dirt, paper, or whatever on the streets. No graffiti on the buildings and bridges. On the right a shot of the "beds" we're sleeping on. Every evening the Japanese women from the Hotel make up our beds. In Japan it's common to also sleep in the living room. At the end of the day the mats and sheets are simply put onto the floor. For us this is very hard but we'll get used to it in a few days. Somewhere on top of this pages there's a picture where Ton and Harry are "sitting" on the chairs without legs. You sit with your feet crossed. I can't sit like this for long. Luckily we spend most of the time outside and not on this room. But it gives us a feeling about the traditional Japanese lifestyle. The organization has arranged "support families" for all nations. Those families get in contact with the teams and try to exchange the culture of the countries. Today we've met our "support mother". She speaks some English and even has visited Amsterdam twice. On a no jumping day she will show us around in the province of Mie so we get a better view of the typical Japanese lifestyle. Although I'm not so cultural minded I'm looking forward to that because we won't get a touristy tour but more an insight into the local family life. Friday October 6, 2000 As promised the Chinook was present. Not just one but four of those beauties. For a few of us the first time jumping from this chopper (Beer!!). Following one on exit (Ton) could give the impression that "chute assis" is a new discipline but he said it was necessary for the individual separation. The teammanager disagreed vigorously. Despite the bigger size of the helicopter, turnarounds took much longer. The beauty hauled five teams (25+ jumpers) in one lift. Rounds between the teams were very long (± 5 min.). The pilots waited until the last of the previous team had landed. Again we couldn't make enough jumps, only 2 accuracy jumps. Although the Chinooks facilitated enough capacity the military used them for some demo's. Luckily Henny could do another Style jump. The time was the same as yesterday (9,28 sec.), but this time with a big penalty of 1,7 sec. Saturday October 7, 2000 The previous days were relaxed but we needed that to acclimatize. Three days before a meet in another continent is a minimum to get used to everything like the competition site, the planes, the food, etc. This is neccessary so during competition you only have to be concentrated on your own jump. Yesterday at dinner we concluded that we were definitely ready to start the competition. Finally this morning the competition was declared open. This was one of the better ceremonies I've attended (and I've done some). Very well organized and very efficient (only words that have to be said). Like everything on this meet, also the ceremony proceeded on an accurate schedule. Prominent attendees were of course Their Imperial Highnesses Prince and Princess Akishino. Also B.J. Worth (president of the IPC), accompanied by his wife Bobbie, held a short speech in which he reminded the historic 25th WPC.
Punctual 13.00 h. the competition started, according the rules with Style for men and Accuracy for the women. The girls could do 3½ rounds before it got dark. Not bad for a first competition day. Unfortunately the weather forecast for tomorrow is not so good. Henny did his first competition jump in Style. After a break of a few hours due to some small clouds above the city it started. It felt like the training jumps but the scores were not posted yet. Hopefully this jump will be sufficient to continue with Style tomorrow. Sunday October 8, 2000
The weather forecast was right, when we woke up the sky was covered with clouds. Even before we arrived at the DZ the organization had a Chinook in the air to check the available altitude. This seemed to be OK so the competition continued with the completion of the fourth round for the girls. There's not enough altitude for Style so we're on standby. As team we've set a target for this meet. We can't focus on a standing (this doesn't say something about ourselves) so we target on a maximum of 50 cm after the first 5 rounds, before the match rounds start.
Finally we made the first accuracy jump. It was a very difficult one. In between the take off and landing the wind changed from zero to about 9 m/s until ± 5 mtr. height with a variable direction. Above the pit no wind at all. It was not easy to get over the pit (lots of wind) and subsequently full brakes to get it down. Ton, Harry and Henny were granted a rejump due to a sudden change of direction more than 90 º. Henny decided to keep his score. Unfortunately Paul didn't get a rejump although he had similar conditions. Extra unsatisfactory is that the judges stopped the competition after our jump. For me the conditions were comparable with Paraski and the eastern wind at Teuge. Except from the snow it completely felt like a Paraski approach. I love this! Geert was so pleased with his score that his mind was only focussed on the landing and not on opening; he forgot to pack his slider. After a few hours it slowly started to rain. The competition was canceled for the rest of the day. We left to the hotel, rented some bikes (¥ 500 = 5 $ for 4 hours) and toured through the city of Toba. In Japan bikes are not very common. Only school kids sometimes have a bike. This was very obvious because everybody looked to those strange Dutch guys on a bike in the rain. Monday October 9, 2000 We were waked by some heavy thunder. I thought to be back home in The Netherlands. When I opened my eyes it was still dark but I was clearly not at home, Harry was snoring right next to me. After breakfast the rain was calming down but the forecast remains bad. This could be our rain day, but we've no experience with the Japanese weather so you never know. It'll be a challenge for our teammanager Johan to setup a recreational and cultural program for skydivers that can not go skydiving. In the meantime the weather is clearing and the organization thinks we can start jumping again from 13:00 h. The weather didn't clear and the rain came back. We went to the DZ but couldn't do anything else than having lunch. After lunch the competition was cancelled for the rest of the day. All busses had to go back to the different hotels. Anyway we did nothing today which gave us a boring feeling. Tuesday October 10, 2000 06:30 h.; the weather looks fine. Up to the DZ and jump! First people that got up were the rejumpers for the first round. Ton improved his score to 0.02 but Harry's nerves played with him and he missed the target. On the second round we had another rejump for Ton. He broke the tape that holds some A-lines. He had to cutaway but landed safely. His first chop in 929 jumps with this equipment (case of beer!). Again a difficult round but this is what we're used to at Teuge. Ton's canopy is professionally fixed by the Japanese rigger. Good job. Both Henny and Geert earned an applause. Henny already regretted not taking the rejump for the first round. The coming rounds will give the answer. Round 3 we jumped without Ton (his canopy was not ready yet) but with Bruno Brokken who followed Henny to make some video shots for the FAI video. After a nice canopy formation stack the approach was difficult again. Some wind up and no wind down. Despite that Henny and Geert came above the target pretty well only Geert could finish it with another 0.00. Henny's foot positioning is not trained enough to make 0.00's. Harry was closer this time and scored 11 cm. Ton jumped later on his own and was happy with both scores of 0.02 and 0.00. Round 3 of accuracy is finished so we will switch to Style. Keep you informed so stay tuned.
Our country neighbors from Belgium had a bad first round too, two 16's and a team score of 17 cm. Maybe we'll have an in-between competition. The second and third rounds were better, only 4 and 3 cm for the team. The Dutchies are 8 cm behind but we'll catch up. Two more rounds to go before the match system.
Wednesday October 11, 2000 Blue sky again. It promisses to be a beautiful and hot day. Schedule for today is Style round 2 man, Accuracy round 6 match women followed by Accuracy men.
We finished the first five rounds and the sixth will be according the match system. Geert and Ton did a very good job and at least Geert got qualified for the match system. There's a big change Ton will match too but we've to wait for the final results. The other three didn't make the final rounds for the individual ranking. As a team we also didn't qualify for the match system (only the first 8 teams continue). We almost got our team target of 50 cm but we could have done better. Anyway regarding the (sometimes difficult) circumstances not too bad. P.s. It was well over 30º today so we all increased our tan color. Thursday October 12, 2000 Also Ton made the next round. Geert and Ton will probably jump in the afternoon. First the remaining rounds of Style will be finished. The women started with their match rounds of Team Accuracy but this was stopped due to the wind conditions. Russia and China will fight for the first 2 places, France and USA for 3 and 4. Friday October 13, 2000
Both Goran Habschied and Marco Pflueger are well known competitiors at World Championchips. It'll be though. We're still waiting for the next round of accuracy. The wind today is like yesterday, to strong for the competition. Sometimes some jumps for Style can be executed. If you can't jump you start looking for other activities to keep busy. I finally got some time to make a bunch of digital stills of all aspects of Accuracy and Style. With these shots I can finish the page about this discipline when I get home (and can find the time to do it.). The organisation already started with some pricegiving. The Women Team Accuracy and Women Style has been completed. A big victory for Russia. They won the Team event and had all three places on the podium with style. The team of China got second and France third.
Saturday October 14, 2000 Blue Sky but strong winds. The men still didn't jump the 6th round of Accuracy. Although winds are fairly strong the last round of Style for men could be performed. Now only men Accuracy Team and Individual rest. This can only start if weather permits (less than 8m/s wind). We'll wait for that and I'll probably work on some shots for the TV program in the meantime. Bruno and I made some camera jumps with the highest ranked Style competitors, male and female. This is good editing stuff for the program. Doing Style is something different than performing in front of a camera. Even top competitors have to give their best to get the shots we need to promote our sport. Finally at the end of the day with the last hours of sunshine the wind dropped a bit and came into acceptable limits. The Chinook went up and could do 2½ load before it was called off due to too strong winds again and no more daylight. Geert was lucky and made the jump. Ton was in the second half of the last load and had to come down with the chopper. He will likely jump tomorrow morning in the first load of the day. Back to Geert. As mentioned before he had to match to Goran from Croatia. Unfortunately for Herr Habschied Geert was able to change that name into Herr Abschied. Although Goran had a nice approach he scored 2 cm. Geert stayed cool and scored his third 0.00 of this competition and outscored Goran with this. Geert will continue with the next round and for Goran it's over. Style for man is also finished now. The awards were given at the end of the day. Marco Pflueger from Germany won gold, Franck Bernachot (France) silver and Jacques Baal (France) Bronze. Philippe Valois from France got fourth which shows the strong field of French Style competitors. Tomorrow (Sunday) is the last day and jumping will stop at 12.00 h. the latest. It's almost certain that not all rounds can be done. What rest is only Accuracy: Female individual, Male individual and Male Team. Sunday night our bus leaves for Kansai Airport (Osaka) from where we will fly to Tokyo National Airport, by bus to Tokyo International Airport and from there to Amsterdam. A trip of ± 30 hours. Sunday October 15, 2000 The last day in Japan. It started very cloudy this morning but winds were fair and the cloudbase proved to be high enough. The 6th round for male individual and the 9th round of female individual could be ran through before it started to rain. Now the meet was definately over. Ton scored 3 cm but that was not good enough to beat the 1 cm of his opponent Pflueger. Because it's finished now Ton will be ranked between 37 and 74 and Geert between 22 and 44. We'll probably get the final sheets to late to be posted on this site, we'll be on our way back home by than. They will lickely be put on the WPC website www.wpcmie.gr.jp On the last jump of Ton he has been filmed by Henny for the TV program. Especially the final landing is very nice on screen. That part will be broadcasted thoughout the world for sure. Competition Results
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OTHER ARTICLES OF ASI FEBRUARY 2001 ISSUE
From The Secretary General's Desk | Air Waves | | News In Brief | Letters To The Editor | World Records | | 1st World Gliding Club Class Championship | | World Parachuting Championships in Accuracy | | FAI World Grand Prix of Aviation | | Bright Paragliding Open Australia | 
More articles on Parachuting |
Finally
after about 40 hours of travelling we arrived in our (Sea Side) Hotel
in Toba. First impression is great, nice Japanese style rooms with view
on the Toba bay, Pearl Island and of course the sea.
Before
the opening the Ground Self-defense Force (SDF) Paratroopers made a
demo jump with the different flags (FAI, SDF, Japan, etc.). A very well
performed demo, making a stack with those canopies is not easy. A local
band entertained us with nice music. We loved it, especially Johan.
The
opening was well attended, many local visitors who staid to watch the
first accuracy rounds of the women. This many people interested in our
discipline is seldom seen at competitions. The organization has put
a lot of effort in getting the sport promoted to the public.
While
my teammates were waiting for better weather I made some camera jumps
for the organization. The FAI is making a TV program from this event
like the ones of former WPC's (Turkey and Australia), which will be
broadcasted on all major mondial TV cannels. I had the honor to follow
one of the Chinese girls on her Accuracy approach on the final round.
A very close and cool shot, especially because she scored a 0.00 so
close in front of my camera. 
