Indonesia fails in four-way first jump
Indonesia fails in four-way first jump
By Primastuti Handayani
LIDO, West Java (JP): Taking on the more experienced and
better prepared foreign teams, Indonesia failed to display a
formation at the four-way sequential event at the Sixth World
Parachuting Championships on Canopy Formation yesterday.
"We're nervous, it's a non-technical problem," Dadang
Kadarusman, a member of the team, said.
Indonesia, which was represented by the Aves Club from
Bandung, West Java, only had one month in the United States to
train for the competition.
"We had trouble in changing from diamond, the basic formation,
into vichy formation up there. Unfortunately, the judges did not
count the point for the basic formation," Dadang explained.
"Other participants, especially from Europe and the United
States, had a better technique to display formations but we are
not capable of using it," he added.
Dadang said that during the overseas stint the team was only
able to display five formations. "We were never be able to form
more than five. I hope we can do better in the next jumps."
The four-way sequential event provides three minutes for each
participant to display a maximum of 14 formations.
Yesterday, France displayed 10 formations in its first jump,
followed by the United States for second place by displaying nine
formations.
Defending champion the United States failed to better its own
world record, which was created in 1994 in Australia by
displaying 16 formations.
Canada and Switzerland shared the third position by displaying
seven formations and South Africa only produced two formations.
The canopy formation championships features three events;
four-way canopy rotation, in which five jumps have been
completed, four-way sequential, in which only one round of jumps
has taken place, and eight-way speed formation, in which three
rounds of jumps were completed on Monday.
The delayed competition, which was scheduled to resume
yesterday and is being contested by six countries, again had to
be postponed owing to the hazy weather.
"The weather is too hazy and we're not able to see the
parachutes on the monitor," chief judge Brenda Reid told The
Jakarta Post.
After midday, when the conditions appeared clear enough to
resume the event, the organizers were forced to abort the
competition as the wind speed was too strong, exceeding 20 knots.
Despite such cancellations, however, chairman of the
organizing committee Vice Marshall Purnomo Sidhi told the Post
that the championships will be finished as scheduled.
"All events will be continued until all participants have a
chance to finish eight jumps," Purnomo said.
"If the weather is perfect, I think we can finish the
championships in only three days," he added.