Round up

It is midday on the Sunday and although all the jumping has been completed, the final rounds of AAA have just been judged by Kate and her team. Having 2 judging panels has made their job a lot easier. Judy, one of the judges from the USA said that they were better judges because of this.

So in the Rookie class, leaders from the very start were Milko’s team Full Stop. They won with an impressive 131 points. Some way behind them was Gra4vity on 87 points and in 3rd place was Baboonylon. This event was definitely a case of being consistent would keep your position in the rankings.

Hibaldstow broke their own maximum lifts average on Saturday with an incredible 142 lifts and 2067 descents. Not bad at all. In the background there are also the hard working packers and many of them broke their personal bests for total rigs packed. Rezzie did an incredible 120 something packjobs!

Another team who have trained at Hibaldstow all season are Unagi. Chatting with Martin their cameraman I asked them why did they not train at their home DZ further south. The answer was team training price rates and the turnaround capability. With that they won the A class competition scoring a solid 91 points. 2nd and 3rd place were much closer, but Slot Machines took the silver with 81 points and Sirius 76 points.

In the AA class there were 9 teams, 7 of which were trained teams. Most of them had put serious money and time into their training which made for a much more interesting event. Army Nemesis won the gold with a clear 107 points. In 2nd place Jet Blondes scored an impressive 91 points over 8 rounds. Another ‘military’ team, RAFSPA Firefly took 3rd place with very little training at all this season.

Lastly, in the AAA class where decisions are made over funding, Satori won first place with an impressive 207 points. I believe 20.7 points is a new highest average record for the UK which exceeds that of XL some 5 years ago. Well done to them. You may be interested to know that Satori have launched the Satori Academy to provide coaching and team creation services. More about them in this blog early next week.

The silver went to Pussy Galore who held their own throughout the event and included several female world champions in 4-way. They scored 168 points. There was some worry at the end of round 7 because Katie Woods from Satori had injured her knee, that Pussy Galore could catch them up. However, they soldiered on and did an amazing 21 points in time on the final round, 7 ahead of the Pussy Galore.

In bronze medal position were Sonic Nutz, an amalgamation of 2008 team Sonic V and Wingnutz. They too had trained hard and all credit to them for their 14.9 average. Speaking to Darren Atter they wanted a 15 average, so just a hair’s breathe off that. Of course the road for them has not yet ended because they are one of the selected teams to go to the World Cup this year.

Well that’s all the scores in. The DZ is busy building their new podium and Simon Cathrine from Fusion has just gone up on a 14-way.

Photos from the medals will be posted here early next week along with a gallery of all the other ground snaps taken in addition. It’s been by far the most exciting Nationals yet in my opinion with a great atmosphere and an efficiently running dropzone. I may be bigging up Skydive Hibaldstow a lot here, but credit where credit is due.