Namibian skydivers display their skills

Ground Rush Adventures held its annual national skydiving club championship last Saturday at Swakopmund.

When it comes to skydiving in Namibia, most will be familiar with being hooked up to a tandem instructor and falling out of a plane at 10 000 feet.

Ground Rush Adventures is renowned for its world class training for students who want to start skydiving. Through this, the number of local jumpers has increased.

In order to develop skills and promote competition, Ground Rush Adventures held its annual national skydiving club championship last Saturday.

It is their aim at some point to send a Namibian team to compete against South Africa during their national championship, but baby steps first …

Skydivers at both junior and intermediate level, including some doing this as a profession, took up this challenge jumping from 10 500 feet and competing in a two-way formation team setup.

The competition was made up of two rounds with different dive plans, allowing the two-way teams only 30 seconds to accumulate as many points as possible.

Teams consisted of junior and senior skydivers of different skill levels, making the contest equally well-matched.

Twenty skydivers split up into 10 teams for this challenge and showcased some excellent skills and entertained the crowd that witnessed this spectacular skydiving event in Namibia.

Anticipation was already flying high before the competition started, with team Organic Pirates (Bianca van der Westhuizen and Grégoire Cavlli) being the outright favourites to take the championship followed by Team Lean and Mean (Bernt Bruns and Peter Verdnyn) and Team Zac Attack (Marc Gregan and Ewert Strauss) respectively.

However, the competition proved much more unpredictable with not one of these three favourite teams reaching the podium.

With only five points separating the top seven teams after the two rounds, it was Team Sky Bosses (Mias Rambo and Jean Basson) who took the honours to be crowned Ground Rush National Club Champions of 2017.

In second place was Team Chop and Dop (Dries van Zyl and Dawie Olivier) followed by third placed Team Sky Surfers (Jannie van der Westhuizen and Anne Bonfert).

Accuracy landing was also a hugely entertaining part of the day, with Anne Bonfert landing only 2.95 meters away from the designated landing area in the junior category, while Grégoire Cavlli's landing measured at 7.18 meters in the intermediate accuracy challenge.

Ground Rush Adventures also acknowledged skydivers that excelled in 2016 with Marc Gregan flying high as Skydiver of the year and Anne Bonfert named the best performing junior of the year.

Ground Rush Adventures and all the participating skydivers would like to thank the following sponsor for making this event a huge success; 2 Beards Coffee, Africa Online, Alter Action Sandboarding, Aquanaut Tours, Café Anton, Desert Tavern, Ground Rush Adventures, Icarus Airwear, Jangwa Adventures Namibia, LR Parts, Namibia Breweries, OTB, Interpack – Red Bull, Sovereign, Swakopmund Hotel and Entertainment Centre, The Fun Shop, Village Café, Werner Lassen.