And One Brings Home Gold From Dubai Cup Despite
Controversy
Two competitors from the US Army Parachute team, SFC Greg
Windmiller and SFC Elisa Tennyson represented the Golden Knights
and the United States as members of Team USA in the second Dubai
Cup, organized by Emirates Aviation Association and Skydive
Dubai.
SFC Tennyson, the current and 8 time US National women’s
accuracy champion competed in a field of 49 women in precision
accuracy. The objective of the competition is to land on a target
equal to the size of a nickel which is only 2 centimeters in
diameter. With the tiny yellow dot as the target, SFC Tennyson
scored a perfect dead center landing on her first jump, and was in
the 4th position. She was set up to take an overall medal with only
one more jump to go, as one of the competitors that was in front of
her had a less than stellar jump, but with only a few jumpers to go
to complete the competition, the remaining jumpers were
unexpectedly cancelled, and the previous round was thrown out
leaving SFC Tennyson in 4th place.
SFC Windmiller is the current and 2 time US National champion in
canopy piloting Speed, as well as the current world record holder
and ranked 2nd in the United States in Canopy piloting.
Representing the Golden Knights and the US in his discipline, he
was among 3 US competitors that made up the official US delegation
in canopy piloting. There were a total of 90 competitors
representing 23 countries in Canopy piloting, a discipline which
consists of 3 separate events, speed distance and accuracy.
Golden Knight SFC Greg Windmiller U.S. Army
Photo
The Distance event was the first event to complete as Windmiller
took top honors and won the Gold. The last day of competition and
the completion of the meet ended in a strange twist of events, just
as it had happened to SFC Tennyson earlier in the day, SFC
Windmiller made his last jump in the Accuracy event count as it was
near perfect, moving him from the 6th place to 1st in that
discipline, earning him the Gold medal and moving him to 3rd
overall winning the Bronze in the individual overall category. With
no one left remaining to jump able to pass his overall score and
locking up 3 gold medals and 1 bronze for the US Team, the
unexpected and unexplainable happened. The meet director stopped
the remaining 15-20 competitors from jumping which would have only
taken approximately 20-30 more minutes to complete and declared the
previous 70 jumps invalid, ending the competition. The decision to
stop the competition was confusing to say the least and caused
quite a bit of controversy.
When asked about the decision to make the circling aircraft land
and “throw out” the previous jumpers scores SFC
Windmiller said “As a competitor I understand that things
happen that are uncontrollable. It is the nature of competition and
every now and again you are the proverbial windshield, but being a
competitor, I don’t feel as though I can complain or have the
right to be upset because, if my performance had been better in the
beginning I would have been in the lead the whole time and had
nothing to lose. I am just proud to have the opportunity to compete
and represent my country, my military, and as a member of the
Golden Knights. If I were to consider myself a leader, then I have
to lead by example and this means to win with pride and humility
and to accept defeat with the same pride and humility. I personally
don’t consider winning 2 Gold medals loosing, but as a member
of the Golden Knights I am expected to perform and win, besides 2
medals are always better than none.”
Golden Knight SFC Greg Windmiller U.S. Army
Photo
The US was one of 41 countries to compete in this invitational
parachuting competition. Collectively there were over 419
competitors, battling it out for medals trophies and over $240,000
in total cash prizes. SFC Windmiller also won $5,000.00 which was
left for the organizer to be donated to the Wounded Warrior Project
on the Golden Knights behalf.