The IPC Committee Freestyle Skydiving, Skysurfing & Freeflying had this year working several activities which you will find here under.

Proposed changes to the competition rules 1999 were discussed and accepted at the IPC General Meeting 2000 in Canberra, Australia. The Committee would like to thank APF for hosting the Meeting. All proposed changes were accepted. The competition rules as a result were seriously changed: less rounds (10 to 7), inclusion of finals, judging system. The judging element still needs attention but seems to have passed the initial starting problems. Still, quite some time is needed to judge one particular jump. The aim for next year is to reduce judging time.

The Committee at the IPC meeting proposed to include Freeflying as an event. This was accepted by the Plenary. A set of competition rules was proposed and accepted. This set of rules was discussed by judges and competitors at the WPC 1999 Australia. These rules were also used at the Worldcup 2000 Eloy. Finally, the Plenary decided to ask FAI for an official extension of the deadline for establishing the WAG competition rules for freeflying, being it a new event. This extension was granted.

In 1999 FAI had established an electronic discussion board at the FAI website under board.fai.org. This enhances communication between the Committee and the competitors. However, it seems like not all competitors and judges are using this board. The committee will enhance her activities to promulgate the use it this tool.

The Committee was glad to have a bid from an organiser for the Worldcup. The bid presented by USPA and Skydive Arizona was accepted by the Plenary. The decision about wether or not to include European Championships was delayed and granted to the Bureau. The Bureau decided positively in this matter. Entry fees were decided on 700 USD, 200 USD lower than Formation Skydiving as the events are shorter. There was a problem about the time period for the judges seminar before the competition. A compromise was proposed by the FAI controller mr .Hoenle and accepted, to let organiser pay for only 2 days food/lodging for the judges.
Entries were low. This was due to several reasons. The Committee feels the high exchange rate of the US $, late knowledge of the bid, the short time between the Worldcup and WAG and lack of funding all Media coverage was good, as the Worldcup was covered by Discovery Channel. The Committee was unable to hold an Open Meeting, as the chair could only be at the competition a short time and the other Committee member was active as judge. However, several discussions during the Worldcup with the top competitors resulted in sufficient knowledge for proposed changes and future competitions.

The above mentioned competitions will be held during the World Air Games 2001, June 23rd through July 1st. The admission of freeflying as an official event lead to a request of the Committee to WAG ECO for inclusion. This request was granted. As such, Freeflying will have its first WPC during WAG 2001.

The World Games will be held in august 2001. 6 male and 6 female teams Freestyle Skydiving are elected to enter. Selection was done by results of 1999 WPC (5 best teams + 1 team from Japan as organising nation. This competition is a showcase for FAI and IPC and is in line with IPC’s goal to have parachuting as an Olympic event.

At present the Committee is not aware of any bids for the mentioned events. The Committee urges all NAC’s to consider such a bid.

The new IPC President, B.J. Worth initiated a Mission Plan (MP) for changing IPC policy, especially towards media. The MP proposed several Task Forces (TF) for specific interests. Being interested in this development I have accepted to become a chair of Task Force “Format Synchronisation” Due to unexpected work on preparing WAG the advancement of MP has been delayed a bit. However, you will find my initiatives in a separate chapter.

My appreciation goes to the members and advisers of the Subcommittee Freestyle Skydiving, Skysurfing & Freefling for their time and work. Members are Markus Willi (Switzerland) and Avi Saba (Israel), advisers are Roger Flinn (UK), Ray Williams (Australia), Jorge Derviche (Brazil) and Omar Alhegelan (USA) . I hope to continue working with them in the future.
However, the Committee would like to include one (or more) members. Few members or advisers are actually able to attend a WPC or Worldcup personally. Also, I feel IPC should represent our new “vertical” events better by sending - alternate - delegates with knowledge of these event.

The Hague, November 22, 2000.
Ronald Overdijk
Chairman IPC Committee Freestyle Skydiving, Skysurfing & Freeflying