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The Pro Swooping Tour's
2007 Air Festival with 2nd annual Mile Hi Canopy Cup
is now complete. The event was very successful with
30 competitors at the competition. The Air Festival
was set up as a "go big or go home" competition with
cash and awards being issued to the 1st place
winners of all events. The event included a total of
eight rounds with two rounds per event. The athletes
got free hot lunch everyday provided by Abos pizza
with fresh soft drinks and lemonade.
The Pro Swooping Tour would like to thank all of our
staff, volunteers and sponsors that make these
events possible. Thanks to sponsors Mile Hi
Skydiving, Daedalus canopies, Mirage Systems, Abos
pizza and Liquid Sky Sports. The PST would also like
to thank chief judge Karine Leblond, assistant judge
Joy Townsend, cameraman Duane Hall, cameraman Steve
Huboba, line judge Tiffany Saunders and all the DZ
staff at Mile Hi Skydiving.
DISTANCE EVENT-Jay Moledzki from the PD
factory team narrowly beat out Team Extreme member
Nick Batsch in the Distance event. Jay's years of
experience showed in the courses, as his position in
the gate was exact. Nick was deep in the entry gate
on the last round costing him the event and the new
distance world record. Nick was only 12 feet short
of taking the event and the new world record with
his JVX 79.
Nick's team mate Jessica Edgeington which is only
one of two "pro" swoopers and the first female
member of Team Extreme had two smoking runs on her
new JVX going 474 feet on her second run but barely
missing the entry gate on round one. Her run of 474
feet was as long as the winner Jay Moledzki's first
run. The PST had FAI judges on hand so Jay's longest
distance run of 494 feet will be submitted as the
new FAI World record under the new weight
restrictions.
ULTIMATE SPEED EVENT-In the ultimate speed
event competitors had to drag the surface of the
water through a 200ft straight course. Jay Moledzki
beat out the field with a 1.83 and 2.2 second run.
Once again his experience showed as he swooped his
body at an angle to keep from popping up at times.
Many competitors popped up after touching the water
giving them a zero round. There was a thin line
between coming in with too much speed and struggling
to stay on the water or coming in too slow and not
making the whole course.
CARVING ACCURACY-The PST brought back the
carving accuracy course for the Air Festival. The
carving accuracy course was created in 2002 and used
until 2004. For many competitors it was the first
time ever seeing or swooping this course. The course
is set up with a narrow "quad" gate over the water
with five exit gates on both the left and right side
of a center gate. Competitors accumulate points by
scoring the quad gate while dragging the water and
then scoring the exit gate of choice. The course is
very challenging and at first glance many
competitors thought it would be easy.
Once again experience was king with this course and
those that had competed in it before did well.
Unlike most of the other events it became obvious
that pilots did not need to approach the course at
full speed or they could not carve to the harder
outside gates for more points. The slower more
docile canopies like the Xaos did much better in
this event.
FREESTYLE-The PST started defining freestyle
moves in 2003 with their first freestyle competition
held in Perris Valley California in 2004. That year
Jay Moledzki and Jim Slaton ripped up the field with
maneuvers like the "Blindman", "wingover" and
"Switchblade". In the 2005 TJ Landgren broke out the
"Tick Jockey" and in 2006 Jeffro Provenzano amazed
the crowd with the first ever "Miracle Man". This
year was set to be an exciting year with pilots
practicing a series of new moves including a back
flip, double miracle man and blindman wingovers.
There were several exciting moves including Isaiah
McCauliffe's "double Miracle Man" attempt and Nick
Batsch's "Blindman wingover".
Both of these guys came very, very close which was
exciting for everyone at the meet. In the end PST
new comer Noah Bahnson from ASC skydiving won the
event with a near perfect miracle man and some
saying it was cleaner then Jeffro's last year.
Swoopers can look forward to some exciting new moves
at this year's biggest swoop event Labor Day weekend
(Aug 30-Sept 2nd) at Mile Hi Skydiving.
TEAM SPEED-The team speed event was back with
dueling 200ft straight courses. In this event the
time starts when the first member enters the gate
and the time stops when the last member exits. There
was twelve teams in this competition on Sunday
morning with Jay Moledzki and Marat Leiras taking
top honors.
OVERALL-The overall winner of the 2007 Mile
Hi Canopy Cup was Jay Moledzki. Jay won a total of
$3,250 including $625 for winning the speed event,
$625 for winning the speed event and a $2,000 check
for his canopy cup win! Stuart Shoenfeld placed 2nd
place overall with a awesome performance even though
he had no first place wins putting him in the money
or awards. Noah Bahnson won $625 for his win in
Freestyle and Jeffro Provenzano and Brian McNenney
shared winnings of the carving accuracy event
winning $312.50 each.
THE GRAND EVENT- The biggest swoop event of
the 2007 season is scheduled for Labor Day weekend
(Aug 30-Sept 2nd) at Mile Hi Skydiving. This will be
the PST & CPC Championships with a $10,000 cash
purse. The CPC Championships will be before the PST
Championships allowing the top 10 winners and
advanced pilots to compete in both events!
The 1st ever PST championships and 3rd annual CPC
Championships will have a similar feel as the Air
Festival but with more vendors, spectators and
exhibitions. The competitors and exhibitionist will
have their own aircrafts with on going action at the
venue. Like the Air Festival we will have Pizza
vendors supplying all the food and drinks to the
athletes with message therapy, chiropractic
services, smoothie booths, beer booth, merchandising
booths, CBS, local networks and much more!


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