swoop competition events

[swooper81 0]

just kind of wondering what event you primarily look at when you view swoop competition results, both pro and amatuer? personally, i look at distance so i can see how far off i am from the "big guns".

[Spizzzarko 0]

Distance is only a small portion of the overall. I think all of the combined events gives us a good idea of who the best overall canopypilot is! Distance is a fun power event but you can be good at distance ans shiity at freestyle which is a finesse event. It is not all about power.

[CanuckInUSA 0]

Freestyle is it's own entity ... but for all the others, if you don't make the gates you don't score. It's as simple as that. In his own words look at what Ian said about his last PST performance. He made very few mistakes on all his jumps and because of this he cracked the top 10 overall.

Sure if you want to try and compare yourself to the big guns, you can try and look at something like distance. But unless you are jumping at the same DZ, at the same event, on the same load with the same WX conditions. The results can be very deceiving at times. Take the final distance round of the 2006 CPC Championships. Load #1 had downwind conditons, load #2 had stiff head wind conditions and load #3 had light to nil head winds. Not fair to compare the distance results from all three loads, but the rules are the rules and we have to accept what Mother Nature gives you. Tom Delbac (sp?) likely would have won last year's CPC Championships had he not been on load #2.

Try not to worry about the things you have no control over

[phoenixlpr 0]

I have seen a pond swooping event, it might be the Farm. It was 100x more fun than watching endless rounds of speed, distance and accuracy.

[LoudDan 0]

Personally I like zone accuracy, and even more carving zone accuracy. Power and finesse all in one and when you have to drag water to boot......a sport of kings I tell ya. These also tend to be the great equalizer at many swoop events as many people tend to train for distance and speed (mainly because zone acc courses are a pain in the ass to set up).

I liked Chris Hayes's idea from a few years ago where he put a small box dead in the middle of the -40 zone and made it worth 100 points if you had first point of contact in it and stayed in it. I believe Tyler Lawson took that event.

Long jump is another cool event, s-carve speed, there are a ton of different events that hover around the basic swoop skillz but are more exciting than the basic three.

Coming soon to a bowl of Wheaties near you!!