Wednesday, 8th November 2017

8.10 this morning the aircraft took off with wingsuiters and flags to arrange a variety of flag jumps to recognise the Vegas Strong movement to supporrt and help victims, and their families, of the Las Vegas mass shooting.  I hope this will add to the public awareness of wingsuiting and also Skydive Fyrosity, part of this Las Vegas community.

9.15 the serious business continued with the Competitors' meeting, which was recorded by Skydive TV, and the first part was broadcast live on Facebook.

John Smyth Committee Chair introduced the members of the committee present at this World Cup, Randy Connell, Dennis Werenskiold, Richard 'Buzz' Bennett and Jimmy Hayhurst, he then continued with a short history of how Wingsuiting developed as an FAI/IPC event.

There then followed a discussion about mixing both 'events' Performance and Acrobatic at the same competition with some competitors explaining that for those competitors entering both events it put an unfair disadvantage because of the differences between the two, meaning a change of suit and even adjusting cameras etc.  By the end of the discussion the competitors accepted that the best for the Discipline and Wingsuiting in general was to have a single discipline Wingsuiting FCE, but to give guidance to the Meet Director on not mixing the two disciplines and for the committee to consider including in the rules a set time period that must be adhered to when switching from one to another discipline.

Dennis, the Chair Elect, then took control of the meeting.  The next topic was to discuss the lane violation penalty which had caused contention during this FCE, and other rule changes.  The competitors voted to have the live transmission of Skydive TV turned off and to hold the rest of the meeting 'in camera'.  There then followed a long and detailed discussion which gave the committee some very good guidelines for the future.  One of the recommendations from the committee was for all competitors to contact their IPC Delegate and ensure he represented and understood their concerns and suggestions, and that they read the Agenda Annexes relating to Wingsuiting and represent you, their competitors, at the IPC meeting in Sofia.

The prize-giving is scheduled for 5.00 pm this evening, followed by the farewell banquet.  I will be reporting on those tomorrow.

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The following is the latest from Skydive TV