The 2000 IPC meeting was held in Canberra, Australia in January 2000. The following is a summary of the results of the meeting from the Formation Skydiving Committee's work:
Rule changes - presentation:
The rules were discussed extensively; in order to comply the needs for the presentation for the future events of Formation Skydiving. The need for an event that is possible to present in a professional manner on the competition site to the competitors/spectators/public and the media is still evident. With the thoughts and inputs on the suggestions for the new format presented last year, the committee decided to move in the needed direction, though not implementing the conceived radical changes that were suggested last year. These suggestion were positive in the manner that very confident and strong input was received from the skydiving community, suggesting that some of the technical changes were too radical to impose on the competition format at this time. However, the support to continue to work for the presentation of our sport towards the media was encouraged. On this basis, the grounds for the changes this year were made, and the major changes to the rules affected more on the presentation, than changes to the technical event rules.
With the support of the delegates from the participating countries, the committee proposed a more flexible format of competitions, increasing the responsibility of the organisers to present the competition in a better manner. With this in mind, the changes that were made were based on the organising and presentation of the competition, and only clarifications and minor changes to the technical points in the rules were made.
These changes may influence the running of the 1st category events as we know them today. The major changes will allow flexibility in the running of the competitions. This is achieved by two major items: separate dates of the competition are set off to include the semi-final and final rounds, and the introduction of flexible working time in the case of clouds not making it possible to jump from the highest altitude. This will allow more flexibility for the event to continue and be completed in the allotted time frame.
The two last days of the competition will be reserved for these rounds. In this manner, it will be possible to set fixed dates for the finals, which gives a better possibility to present the competition towards media, sponsors and the public. If all the planned rounds before the final rounds are not completed, the competition will still move into the final rounds. This will allow the competition to be both a full 10 round competition, and at the same time flexible to fewer rounds due to weather. The ten highest scoring teams from each event will be selected to the semi-finals, and the six top teams (with the accumulated highest scores) from the semi-finals will be selected to the finals.
The exit altitudes remains at the normal set altitudes, but flexibility for the possibility of reduced working time in case of for example lower cloud levels has been introduced. The working time for four-way would in this case be reduced to 20 seconds, and for eight-way to 30 seconds. Levels of working time in-between the regular and reduced were discussed, but decided that it was better for teams to take benefit of knowing these set altitudes in advance. If a round can not be completed because of clouds, a new round can be initiated from a lower exit altitude, and this would have to be completed before going back to the incomplete round with the regular working time. If a round is not completed, it will not count for the selection of the teams moving into the finals.
The natural continuation of this, once implemented, tested and found positive, will be to discuss to decide on the maximum number of days a competition should be organised in, but this can only take effect after the completion of the World Air Games in Spain in 2001. Effectively, a complete event should be able to be run in a maximum of for example 5 days, thus halfening the time that World Championships are run today. This should be able to reduce the financial burdens on the teams significantly, and have a very effectively run competition.
On the same lines for presentation, the use of digital video instead of analog has also been adopted (also in line with the Freestyle & Skysurf competition format). Exciting new possibilities of transferring via “fire-wire”, saving and distributing footage on to electronic media and judged from computers are the next possible steps in this direction.
Finally, directions on the presentation of the competition through the use of either live air to ground judging or a “dubbed judging” (judging as the dive was dubbed at the dubbing station) in the reverse order of placings has been implemented to ensure a best possible presentation of the competition on site.
Other technical changes:
On the technical changes, the removal of the “double bust” situation was included; a clarification for the NJ situation was made (the judges should always judge a situation presented on the screen (correct or incorrect), and not first decide if it was “visual” or not; and a clearing of the turn requirement rule so as to avoid the situation arisen at the last World Championship. Other minor changes were also included for clarifications. (see below). None of these technical changes should alter the requirements for the team’s performance and training in any serious manner.
In the dive pool, two changes were made in the 4-way pool - Block 3 a double arrow was included on the three way subgroup, and a new random “F” - “Twins” was included to replace the Spinner. In 8-way, the Long Diamond - Optic block was replaced with a new block, “Wagga - Wagga”. (for name explanation, please consult your nearest Australian.) The new blocks can be found at www.fai.org/parachuting/documents/.
No changes were made to the 16 way rules, and the 1999 version continues to be valid.
Competitions:
The World Cup in 4, 8 and 16 way event will be held in Eloy, Arizona from November 3rd - November 12th this year, which will be held together with the World Cup in Freestyle, Skysurf and the newly approved event Freeflying. Depending on the results of some technical aspects still to be investigated, the European Championships will also be included in the World Cup in the USA. The Female Event was also included as a World Cup in 2000, and as a World Championships within the World Air Games in 2001.
For 2001, the World Championships are to be held in conjunction with the World Air Games in Grenada, Spain, June 20th - July 3rd. France indicated interest in hosting the 1st Mondial Championships (All IPC disciplines together in one competition) in 2003, and more information on this will be presented at the next IPC meeting in San Diego in January 2001.
For the World Games in Akita Japan in August 2001, the selection of the participating countries were (4-way event only):
France, USA, Norway, United Kingdom, Russia and Japan, based on the results of the previous World Championships. The competition is to take place between August 14th until the August 23rd 2001. If any of the above countries or teams of any reason has to withdraw, another country may be selected from the results of the World Games in Spain, 2001.
For a downloadable version of the 2000 rules for Formation Skydiving check out www.fai.org/parachuting/documents/.
Oslo, January 25th, 2000
Pål Bergan
Chair, IPC Formation Skydiving Committee.
e-mail : ipc-fsky@fai.org
