News from 2008

2008 Pictures

The pictures from 2008 pictures can be found in the Gallery. Check it out!

2008 Season Start

The Skydive Chicago Furies season started on June 20th with a 3 day tunnel camp at Eloy, AZ, with awesome coaching from Murel Addison, 2006 Gold in Advanced class with Arizona Divewerkz, and Gary Beyer, Arizona member 1995 - 2002. The girls had a great time, learned lots and can't wait to try it in the air.

The following weekend the girls attempted their first skydives together for the season at the MWSL competition at Skydive Chicago. The meet was well attended with 7 teams participating. These were also the first skydives this season for Sarah and Karyn. Nice job ladies! Not a single funnel!

For the July 11th weekend, the girls had a Coaching Weekend with Murel Addison from Arizona. It was a great learning opportunity for the girls on not only the skydiving, but also the training process and how to make it more efficient due to the limitations caused by the great variety in midwest weather. Thanks to Mandrin and the other VRW teams for helping the planes keep turning to minimize the downtime. And thanks to manifest and pilots for getting all the teams on the right planes. And a big thanks to the packers for getting everyone packed and on the loads.

2008 Line-up Adjustment

The Skydive Chicago Furies will be back for the 2008 season, and with the return of Shannon Sweet in the Tail position, the team is happy to announce an all-female roster once again!  Karyn Rees, formerly of the CSC Sirens, will return as Point, and Gosia Cienkosz and Sarah Lawrence will continue flying Outside Center and Inside Center, respectively.  Charles Lane will return as the Furies videographer.

Weather inevitably shortens the season for all Midwest teams, but this year the Furies will face additional challenges as the ladies travel from all points of the Globe for training.  Michigan natives Shannon and Charles will resume their epic weekly road trips from Grand Rapids, Sarah will return from escaping the winter in Atlanta, Karyn reenters the U.S. from an assignment in London, and Gosia is praying her job doesn’t require as much travel as it did last year!  Although coordinating schedules can seem like the most difficult part of four-way, the girls’ dedication to the team makes the sacrifices worthwhile.  Sarah summed up their approach saying, “even if we only make 200 training jumps a year, but we make those jumps really count, we can probably progress farther in the long run than if we switched teams every year out of convenience.” 

Last fall the Furies finished their first season of AAA competition with a strong 11-point average at the USPA Nationals at Skydive Chicago, their home dropzone.  After a year of study and training on the full dive pool, the girls look forward to building on that foundation to move up the ranks against the increasing level of competition in the Advanced class this year.