Day 2 at the 2nd FAI World Indoor Skydiving Championships was long, hard and packed full of excitement. There are eight championship events here in Laval, Canada – here’s a roundup of what happened during the day.

In the hotly contested 4-Way Formation Skydiving, 15 countries have been battling it out. After completing five rounds on the first day of the comp, they all completed a further four today. The final round is on Sunday 22 October 2017. 

Belgium is top of the table, with 299 points - a mere seven ahead of France. France will be hoping for a small miracle to allow them to pull back and take gold, but it could still happen if Belgium drop the ball. Meanwhile Russia and USA are separated by only one-point for third place – that will be a battle to watch.

In the Women’s 4-Way Formation Skydiving, France are way ahead of the UK in second. Behind the UK is Sweden. Going into the final round, the points spread show it will almost certainly stay in that order for gold, silver bronze.

In 4-Way FS Juniors, France is top of the table, with home nation Canada in second and Czech Republic in third position. There are two more rounds to go, so things could change, but expect to see the youngsters of Canada bring home a medal for the host nation.

In Vertical Formation Skydiving - yep, those are the flyers doing all of this head-down – France are top of the leaderboard. The USA is only six points behind in second though, so with two rounds to go, there could be a tussle for the silverware in VFS. It looks like Poland should take the bronze, as their points spread places them securely in that spot.

In the spectacular Freestyle event, Russia’s 29-year-old showman Leonid Volkov is in first position. “I want the gold,” he said earlier today. There are less than two points separating him from Poland’s Maja Kuczyńska – however, points are awarded in tenths in this discipline, so that’s an ok margin, give his current form. The Czech athlete Jakub Harrer is in third by a mere 0.4 points. Again, that battle will be one to watch.

In the Freestyle Juniors, Kyra Poh from Singapore is still in the lead, with Kaleigh Wittenberg (USA) and Andrzej Soltyk (POL) almost neck-and-neck in second and third position.

Finally, the Dynamic 2-Way and Dynamic 4-Way teams battled it out long into the evening. We’ll see how they get on in their final battles early tomorrow.

To sum up, overall it looks like France is on track to top the medals table and take a good chunk of gold home with them – but this is sport, and anything can happen as the competition enters its final stages on Sunday 23 October 2017.

Follow the Livestream and stay in touch via the competition website at www.wisc2017.com

Photo: Reese Willson (USA) stays cool in the Freestyle competition on Saturday 21 October 2017. Credit: FAI / Marcus King