Vale of Belvoir skydivers plunge to national title

Chimera pictured during their national title winning flight
PHOTO Pete Harries at Skydive Langar — Chimera pictured during their national title winning flight PHOTO Pete Harries at Skydive Langar

A Vale of Belvoir skydiving team is celebrating a national title success.

The ‘Chimera’ team, based at Langar Airfield, plunged successfully to the four-way formation championship in the British National Skydiving Championships.

The team comprised James Woods and Sarah Ashworth, from Harby, Laura Hampton (Bingham) and Will Cooke (Langar), with Cotgrave skydiver, Pete Harries, taking photos in mid-air with a camera mounted on his helmet.

They held on to each other to create shapes, or formations.

The Langar team celebrate their national title success

Laura, who holds the position of ‘outside centre’ in Chimera, said: “It’s been an incredible journey and we are so proud of what we’ve been able to achieve.

"It’s been a long road to this point, and we’ve had ups and downs along the way; to come out victorious this weekend was a genuine dream come true for us all.

“We look forward to using our new title to inspire other people to try skydiving and to learn formation skydiving, in particular.”

The team beat the silver medallists by 40 points and they beat off competition from 30 other teams competing for the title.

Chimera pictured during their national title flight
Pete Harries at Skydive Langar — Chimera pictured during their national title flight Pete Harries at Skydive Langar

Chimera will now head to the World Skydiving Championships, in Eloy, Arizona, in the United States, in October, where they will proudly represent Great Britain.

The squad regularly trains at Skydive Langar and will continue sessions there to prepare for the global competition next month.

A number of other teams from Skydive Langar also attended the national championships, including Silver Linings, Alola, Eros, Winged Hussars, L3, DNF and Spread Eagles.