World Style and Accuracy Landing Championships: home win for Juriš as China dominates

From 29 August to 4 September 2026, the grass airfield at Spišská Nová Ves, home of the Compact Skydive drop zone, hosted the 39th FAI World Style and Accuracy Landing Championships and the 13th Junior World Championships. Individual accuracy landing drew 132 men and 48 women from 25 countries. Juniors, competitors who turn 24 or younger in the year of the event, jumped in the same rounds and had their own classification.

The 2026 world champions

• accuracy landing, men: gold Róbert Juriš (Slovakia, 6 cm over ten jumps), silver Sylvain Ferroni (France, 7 cm), bronze Abdulaziz Ahmed (Qatar, 9 cm)
• accuracy landing, women: gold Li Yiyao (China, 13 cm), silver Samanta Vallarino (Italy), bronze Tatjana Gustke (Germany); both finished on 15 cm and a tie-break jump decided the order
• style, men: gold Yu Ruilong (China, 28.64 s over five series), silver Robin Griesheimer (Germany), bronze junior Wei Gaoqi (China)
• style, women: gold junior Qin Jiayi (China, 31.80 s), silver Lyu Yueying, bronze Li Yiyao (both China)
• overall: Robin Griesheimer (Germany) and Li Yiyao (China)
• team accuracy: Czech Republic (31 cm) ahead of China and Germany among men, China (45 cm) ahead of the Czech Republic and France among women
• men's overall nation classification: China ahead of the Czech Republic and Germany

The women's overall nation classification did not meet the minimum entry requirements, so it produced no valid result.

Juniors: a clean sweep for China

Every one of the six junior titles went to China. Wei Gaoqi won junior men's accuracy landing, style and overall, and Qin Jiayi won junior women's style and overall. Liu Hongxiao took junior women's accuracy landing.

How accuracy landing is scored

The competitor exits at 1,000 metres, or 800 metres in the semi-final and final, and lands on a tuffet about 5 metres across and at least 30 cm thick. At its centre sits an electronic measuring device with a contrasting dead-centre disc 2 cm in diameter. The device records, in centimetres, the distance from the edge of the disc to the point where the competitor's body first touches down. Hitting the disc scores 0 cm; landing off the device scores 16 cm.

Three judges at the target decide each landing by majority, and in unclear cases the event judge reviews the video. After eight rounds, the top 30 men and 15 women go through to the semi-final, and the top 15 men and 8 women to the final, ties included; this year 18 men jumped in the final. The lowest total wins. Juriš hit the disc on five of his ten jumps.

A team has up to five members, who exit the same aircraft on the same pass over the target. The best four landings in each round count towards the team score.

How style is scored

In style, the competitor exits at 2,200 metres and flies a series of six manoeuvres in freefall: two full horizontal turns in opposite directions, a back loop, two more turns and a second back loop. The order of the turns changes across four set series, and in the fifth round competitors choose their own series.

The score is the time from the start of the first manoeuvre to the end of the last back loop, in seconds and hundredths, plus penalty time for imprecision, for example 0.1 seconds for every 5 degrees a turn falls short. A single jump can score no more than 16 seconds. Five judges watch the video at normal speed and in slow motion, and the average of the middle three scores counts.

After two rounds, men with a total of 17 seconds or less and women with 20 seconds or less continue, and half of the field drops out after each of rounds three and four. This year's final had eight men and five women. Yu Ruilong flew his fastest series in 5.60 seconds.

The Polish competitors

Poland entered a men's accuracy landing team: Jan Mach, Tomasz Rapita, Łukasz Zajchowski, Robert Krawczak and Kamil Wójciak. The team finished 15th of 24 on 82 cm. The best individual result was Mach's, 67th of 132 on 28 cm. Rapita was 77th, Zajchowski and Krawczak tied for 82nd, and Wójciak was 95th. None reached the semi-final, and Poland had no competitor in men's style.

Two Polish women also competed. Monika Bekhit was 38th of 48 in accuracy landing, 13th of 21 in style and joint 17th overall. Katarzyna Wojcik finished 48th in accuracy. There are no Polish names in the junior results.