Friday evening, 1st December 2017 - Dubai

A well organised and jazzy closing ceremony with the backdrop of the Marina DZ and eating out under the stars, a lovely way to end this World Cup in Canopy Piloting.  It was quite difficult to take photographs of the actual ceremony because of the huge screen behind the poduim reflecting what was going on, but this did not take away from the honour paid to all our Medal winners after this tightly fought competition.  CONGRATULATIONS to all.

Following the last medal ceremony of the World Cup of Canopy Piloting, the competition was formally closed by the lowering of the FAI flag to the playing of the FAI Anthem, followed by the announcement of the IPC President, Dr. Rainer 'EXI' Hoenle that the competition was completed.  He accepted the FAI flag on behalf of the next organiser of the World Canopy Piloting Championships. Wroclaw, Poland July 2018, and said he hoped to see everyone again there.

There were, of course, speeches of thanks to all who had worked so hard to make this happen, particularly with the problems created by the last minute change of venue.  To the Organising Committee, who between them presented the medals, H.E. Nasser Al Neyadi, Chair; H.E. Yousif Hassan Al Hammadi, Director; H.E. Mohammed Yousuf Adbul Rahman, Deputy Director, Helmut Schlecht, Deputy Meet Director, Salim Akram Abdelkarim, Public Relations & Transport, Mohamd Mahgoub, Finance and Takuya Iwamotu, Skydive Dubai Desert Campus Operation Manager.  To all those of Skydive Dubai who helped with so many of the jobs, Manifest, the Technical Course Director's team including those on rescue, the Rigger service, to all the Media and IT team who made it possible for me to work. Our commentator Regan Tetlow (and Alberto Martin Paracuellos for stepping in for the closing ceremony when Regan had to leave early) - thank you for keeping both the competitors and all those watching up to date with the competition - keeping the tension and excitement going for all.  For the Dubai Police and Medical Teams, Boat teams and the catering staff.  This list goes on and I hope they all enjoyed the Gala dinner, music and fireworks after the medal ceremonies as much as I did.   

Not, of course to forget all our own people, Judges; Craig Bennett (CJ), Bjorn Korth (EJ), Bernard Nicolas (EJ), Marylou Laughlin (EJ) plus Julia Sotnikova, Christina Zacho, and Neil McGrath along with two additional judges; Gundel Klement and Nina Engle and CTJ Dr. Rainer EXI Hoenle and his trainees:  Don Tomkinson (GBR), Cole Ruthenberg (AUS) and Liv Schladenhaufeu (GER); Jury:  Gillian Rayner (President), Peter Plafzgraf and Alberto Martin Paracuellos (Members), FAI Controller: Mike Teague; and Scoring System Provider (2 hats) Bjorn Korth.   Congratulations to all the trainee judges in passing their exam as well.  Thank you also to Alberto Martin Paracuellos and Marylou Laughlin for providing me with additional photographs for these pages.

And a huge thank you to all the Competitors for making the effort and taking part in this 9th FAI World Cup of Canopy Piloting.

However there was one further Medal Ceremony and this was for the Dubai International Canopy Piloting Freestyle competition with money prizes.  Having entertained the crowd and their fellow jumpers at the end of the morning with a few wet canopies and rigs to carry home (not for the medal winners!) the medals were presented in a separate ceremony:

FAI Flag flying at the opening	Lowering of the flag - closing the competition.

Once the formal ceremonies were over the party could begin with a live band playing and then a firework display with lazars and smoke creating patterns accross the diners.  Thank you Dubai for a great evening, week and competition.

Finally I cannot end this report from Dubai without thanking Fay Kimble, my colleague who had set up our results site IPC Results to accept the results directly from Bjorn's system.  Unfortunately the only way they would be produced live on our site - which was watched by all the jumpers on the DZ, used by Ragen Tetlow during his commentary at the competition, and other interested parties around the world - was for Fay to get up at some silly hour in the morning in France, sitting at her computer and updating the results as they came in via Dropbox.    So a million thank yous from all of us for your unseen, but much appreciated, work.

Goodbye Dubai, thank you once again for a great competition.  Will be reporting next from the IPC Plenary in Sofia, Bulgaria, January 2018.