Karina Hollekim at the World BASE Race- Saturday

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Karina Hollekim at the World BASE Race: Saturday

Karina Hollekim at the World BASE Race: Saturday

Aug 15, 2009

Karina Hollekim had an early start this morning in Norway, but it was worth the effort.

Hi all!

Yesterday was a washout in the end here at Innfjorden. Every time the start times were put back, the rain just carried on falling and we had to cancel.

With it being such a tricky day on Friday, and with rain forecast for later this afternoon, it made it a really tight schedule for today, with just four hours the estimated window for jumping.

So, we all started hiking at 7am to get to the top of Gridsetskolten to begin the quarter-finals. The weather was pretty good by the time the first jump went at 9am, and it was cool to see the 16 athletes taking off in twos to race each other at last!

After this first round of heats, with the schedule so tight, the organisers had to take the difficult decision to cut the semi-final stage and take the best four athletes from the quarters and bring forward the bronze and gold finals to this afternoon while the weather was good. This wasn’t ideal, but better this way than to wait tomorrow and not be able to run the final.

In the bronze final, Robert Pecnik took on Neil Amonson of the USA. Robert is founder of the Phoenix Fly company, who make wingsuits and other cool advanced skydiving and BASE jumping equipment, and he’s a hugely experienced BASE jumper. And he is very quick – Robert recorded just 19.06 seconds over 750m to take the bronze, which is crazy, crazy fast.

In an all-Norwegian gold final, Frode Johannessen took on Petter Bergsjø. Froder is the Norwegian champion, and Petter is also really experienced, as you’d expect for someone getting so close to the title. But Frode took the honours. I guess that makes him the fastest human being alive!

The atmosphere was very good again today, with many people showing up to support the jumpers, some of them in traditional local costume. There was Norwegian dancing in the finish area and a folk band to add to the cool vibe.

The organisers definitely made the right decision to finish the event today, as it’s already raining again!

Now, we are chilling out and having something to eat so we can recover after such an early start and get ready for the party later. With 30 BASE jumpers around, it won’t be a quiet night!

Hope you enjoy the rest of the weekend, too!
-K-