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The committee and the FS competitors have had an active year in 2002. Spain hosted the WC in FS in 4 and 8 way and the 4 way female event in October. Russia hosted the Anton Malevski Memorial Meet in July-August. This was a 4 way invitational competition. The committee conducted an open Competitor's meeting in Spain, where the rule changes and future directions were discussed.

Competition Rules

Changes made to the rules at the start of this year have been widely accepted without much comment. 8-way competitors seem happy the three point blocks and their associated switches have been removed. Some competitors felt the final and semi final rounds had too few teams, especially with close competitions.

Use of the tie break rule occurred at the USA Nationals and proved acceptable.

The committee has received the following inputs in regard to rule changes for this coming year. (See agenda for open meeting)

• Examine judging methods to improve scoring accuracy (in conjunction with the Judges Committee)
• Re-examine the requirement for live dubbed judging. In Spain, with only one judging panel, this resulted in long waits for videographers and was impractical.
• Look at the use of two cameras and the ability of the Videographer to examine the video before dubbing.
• Examine team composition. Medals should only be awarded to team members and this is hard to ensure at the moment. One possibility is to make the Videographer part of the team. There could be other implications to this such as the possibility an NJ becomes a bust and the use of a male Videographer in the female event. As the WPC is in 2003, changes will be made to minimize disruption to teams in training.
• Training jumps. The judges at the moment sit for a day and wait to see if any teams will submit jumps for judging.
• Ensure a team cannot enter both the 4 way and Female 4 way event.
• Re-examine the number of teams that compete in semi and final rounds.

2002 World Cup of Formation Skydiving, 4-way, 8-way and Female 4-way.

The 13th World Cup and the 5th Open European Championships in Formation Skydiving were held in Empuriabrava, Spain in October. This incorporated the 3rd Women's World Cup and the 1st European Championships in Women's 4-way Formation Skydiving.

The use of the new 5 day format caused no problems and the competition was completed in 3.5 days. Only one panel of judges was used and this also proved successful, with delays in judging of only up to 1.5 hours on one occasion.

In the WC, 24 teams entered in the 4-way, 6 teams in the Women's 4-way and 10 teams in 8-way. In the European Championships there were 12 teams in 4-way, 6 teams in Women's 4-way and 7 teams in 8- way. This event was better attended than the previous WC, probably due to location, timing and price. Allowing competitors to find their own accommodation and meals (excluding lunches) proved acceptable.

Live dubbed judging with one panel of judges caused long delays at the dubbing station for Videographers. There was little control over the order of dubbing, so even though teams exited in one order, their jumps were often dubbed and judged in another. The process was abandoned during the meet if delays started to occur and the judging then continued from tapes. The live dubbed judging was used more successfully during the final rounds.

The Videographers would often review their tapes during the waiting period before dubbing. Prevention of this reviewing was impractical and no tampering or problems arose because of this.

The presentation to the public was effective. A large screen mounted on the back of a semi trailer was used to show teams as they were being judged. Interviews were also conducted next to the screen with teams as their jumps were judged. This added to the excitement especially during the semi and final rounds.

The award ceremony was held in a neighboring town with a large hall. One problem was the awarding of medals to those who were not officially part of the team, such as male Videographers in the female event. The jury discussed this and asked the FS committee to find a solution. After the completion of the Competition, the FS judges rejudged some of the Anton Malevski meet using an Omniskore system with the ability to show all judging scores to all judges before confirmation. This is part of an effort by the Judging and FS committee to improve the accuracy of scoring without sacrificing time. The experiment did not lead to greater accuracy and proved confusing and tiring for the judges. I would like to thank them all for their time and effort. I would also like to thank Ted Wagner and Omniskore for their assistance in this project. The FS Committee would like to thank the Spanish organizers who produced a very good competition at short notice and Alberto Martin Paracuellos who served as Meet Director. We also wish to thank Pia Berggren (Chief Judge) and her staff of Judges and Rainer 'Exi' Hoenle for his work as FAI Controller.

Open Committee Meeting

An open committee meeting was held one evening during the competition. Competitors were mainly in agreement with the last IPC changes except for wanting more teams to the finals, especially when the placings are very close. (There would have probably been no change in placings at this meet if we had 6 and 10 teams to the finals as some of these teams went through in the European Championships anyway and we had their scores).

The concept of all rounds comprising 6 points was discussed as a future direction the Committee may follow and the response was non-committal with competitors wanting time to absorb the concept and implications.

Another point of discussion was making the Videographer a compulsory part of the team, which generated a similar response with slightly more negativity.

The use of the second camera view for instances where a grip went off screen was also discussed. This could be considered an NV as it relates to the size of lens used or an NJ as it relates to the positioning of the Videographer.

We discussed using live dubbing for finals only or if practical, earlier.

The use of two cameras and allowing the Videographer to make the choice of which to dub after he or she had viewed the tapes was discussed. This would take all the implications of cheating by viewing the tapes out of our rules.

Competitors also were strongly in favour of reconsidering air to ground as the preferred way of being judged. There was concern over retaining judges and the possibility of paying Judges to attend competitions was put forward.

Judging was also discussed with teams encouraged to submit tapes through the year for judging so the judges can keep their skills up. A new Judges training tape is planned for this year.

Committee Work

My appreciation is extended to the members and advisors of the Formation Skydiving Committee:
Exi Hoenle (Germany), Mads Larsen (Denmark), Marc Hoornweg (Netherlands), Frank Mahut (France), Jerome David (France) and Anatoly Zhirov (Russia).

Fiona McEachern
Chair, IPC FS Committee
Australia
14.11.02