France took gold in four of those disciplines, including: Women’s 4-Way Formation Skydiving (FS); Juniors 4-Way Formation Skydiving; Vertical Formation Skydiving; and the Dynamic 4-Way. They were beaten into silver-medal position however, in the hotly contested Open category of 4-Way Formation Skydiving, as rivals Belgium took gold.
With the Freestyle and Formation Skydiving competitions concluded, attention moved to the finals of the Dynamic flying. In these contests, athletes in pairs and fours ‘battle’ an opposite pair or four. Whichever team wins, progresses to the next round. They fly a Freestyle round to music, and a Speed round with penalties.
Both competitions supplied surprises. In the Dynamic 2-Way the pair from Singapore had been leading the competition and were favourite to win. However, matched against Poland in the final, a time penalty in Singapore’s last round, and a powerful Freestyle round from Poland saw Singapore drop into silver medal position.
France’s final medal of the day came in the Dynamic 4-Way. Again, this came down to the wire. France and Czech Republic were judged evenly matched, and so a sudden-death Speed round was called. That provided high tension, with judges discussing a possible time penalty for several minutes as the athletes and crowd waited to hear the outcome. When it came down in France’s favour – they were 0.75 seconds faster than the Czech Republic – the crowd erupted.
