By : Graeme Windsor

Twenty seven nations entered the World Skydiving Championships held at the small town of Corowa, in Australia from 20 to 30 October 1999.

Corowa is situated on the Murray River in southern New South Wales, and its seldom-used sealed runways were an ideal location for the large fleet of aircraft that carried skydivers up to 13,000 feet.

Over 453 participants registered for the event, with hundreds more turning up to watch the action on the strategically placed television screens or to make a few jumps themselves.

35 judges plus assistants worked tirelessly to produce scores quickly from the video evidence supplied by each team's camera flyer. The video judging was cabled out to TV screens located around the airport for all to see, together with a marvelous graphics overlay which allowed competitors to see the scores of each judge as they came up.

Aircraft used for the championships included three DHC-6 Twin Otters and a Shorts Skyvan, while other enthusiasts were able to utilize another Skyvan, a Cessna Caravan (C208) and a New Zealand built Cresco, originally designed for agricultural work, but reworked to carry 10 jumpers with the aid of a PT6 turbo prop conversion.

Events conducted during the championships included the:- · 13th World Championships in Formation Skydiving in 4 and 8 way; · 2nd World Championships in Freestyle and Skysurfing; and · 1st Women's World Cup of Formation Skydiving.

During the practice period in the days prior to the event, 81 skydivers, mostly from Australia, combined to set a new National record for the largest freefall formation.

The opening ceremony saw aerial displays by two MIG aircraft, an RAAF Pilatus PC9 trainer, and ground displays of aboriginal dancing and fire fighting, over 100 skydivers jumped from a formation flypast to celebrate the first such championships in Australia in 22 years.

Unseasonably cold weather from the South (yes folks, we are downunder where southerlies are cold!) in the first few days of competition which had competitors looking for thermal underwear and covering up under blankets and sleeping bags on the ride up.

Favourite for the Formation Skydiving events, (teams of 4 and 8) was the strong American team, Arizona Airspeed, who had earned the right to represent the USA in both events.

However, a highly disciplined and well practiced team from the perennial adversary, France, managed to nudge past the USA to win the 4 way event and the Bill Ottley Sword.

USA were too strong in the 8 way event and retained their World Champion status (and the Bill Ottley sword) in a close finish with Russia.

In the Men's Freestyle events, newcomers to international competition, Ashley Crick and Jonathon King from Australia astounded everyone with a fantastic performance to take the gold medal, from Chris Rimple and Grant Hetherington representing USA.

In another surprise, Gemma Stevens/ Paul Truman from Australia led all the way in the Women's Freestyle event, only to be narrowly beaten in a classy final performance by the French team of Cellicout/Gillard who won with a margin of 0.4 of a point in a total of 855.6.

The spectacular Skysurfing events resulted in the Russian team of Rozov/Burch winning the gold from Fradet/Iodicce(France) and Furrer/Heggli (Switzerland).

The Women's Skysurfing team of O'Brien/O'Brien of the USA blitzed the rest of the field with a solid win over Wengrath/Krecker (Switzerland) and Graice/Gottinger (Germany).

FAI enterprise entered into an agreement with the Australian Parachute Federation just weeks prior to the event to facilitate a public relations effort and to produce a 52 minute documentary of the event. The documentary has been shown on Eurosport (3 and 6 December 1999) and distribution has been arranged world wide through FAI enterprise and the Trans world International group.

Full results can be found at http://www.omniskore.com/comp/99_world_meet/index.htm