Dubai girls set to take on the world at 'Clash of Champions'

Despite just a year of team flying under their belts, Dubai-based skydivers Naomi Kotzee and Shayni Couch are set to take on the world when the 2015 Clash of Champions, the world’s richest indoor tunnel flying event, gets underway at Inflight Dubai on Thursday November 26.

Competing under the name 'Password Is Taco', the two girls will face a stiff test in the 2-Way Dynamic discipline and are hoping their own local knowledge will give a slight advantage in the world’s richest indoor tunnel flying event, staged under the patronage of Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Crown Prince of Dubai.

“Knowing the tunnel might just be in our favour,” said Kotzee, a South African who works as an instructor for Skydive Dubai and Inflight Dubai.

“Each tunnel has it’s own little differences and to feel more comfortable and familiar is going to help us relax.

“But this will be our very first competition together as a team so our main aim is to have fun, to learn and to gain exposure - and to look good of course. We can't wait to see what we can take from the experience and move on towards our next competition. For us it's going to be a lesson in what to expect from the sport in the future and how we can grow as a team.”

The three-day tournament will see the sport’s best international teams do battle for a share of $200,000 in the tallest and largest indoor tunnel (5.03m x 20.73m) in the world.

International judges will mark the teams and individuals on their performances with the prize-giving set for Saturday November 28.

“Our training for the event has been all about learning the dive pool, flying speed rounds like crazy, crashing into the walls and each other and working on our individual flying abilities to contribute towards a nice free routine,” added Kotzee who will help her New Zealand flying partner Couch celebrate her birthday just 24 hours before the competition begins.

“Training hours are more or less around an hour to an hour-and-a-half per week. “The purpose of our team is to enjoy flying and work on something together but it was also with having a competition in mind. So here we are and ready to go.”

As well as locally-based flyers, Inflight Dubai will welcome competitors from all over the world for an event that will see competition in several categories, namely four and eight-way Formation Skydiving (featuring four and eight flyers respectively) and two and four-way Dynamic Skydiving. There will also be head-to-head battles in the Best Trick discipline.

Teams from the UAE, Bahrain and Qatar will be up against the best indoor tunnel flyers from countries such as France, the USA, Russia, France, Belgium, the Czech Republic and Canada in what will be the first international competition of its kind at Inflight Dubai’s world-class facility.

The first flyers will take to the tunnel at 9.00am on Thursday November 26 with the competition set to be completed around 2.30pm on Saturday November 28 afternoon.

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