(COLORADO SPRINGS) — The U.S. Indoor Body Flight National Championship took place at iFly in Colorado Springs this weekend, drawing 145 athletes from across the country to compete in high-speed aerial performances.
“These are the best of the best, really bringing their A-game,” said Emily Bombardi, Competition Director.
The event, known for its gravity-defying stunts, featured wind speeds reaching up to 169 miles per hour, allowing athletes to showcase their skills in the tallest wind tunnel in the world.
“We have the best wind tunnel in the world. We’re the only one with the tallest wind tunnel in the world, and we’re the only one in the United States with a bar,” said Korky Von Kessel, part-owner of iFly Colorado Springs.
“Most of the wind tunnels only have about 20 feet of glass, where ours has 40 feet; we’re the only double-layer glass wind tunnel in the United States,” said Joel Maynard, part-owner of Ifly Colorado Springs.
The competition was intense, with the final two Dynamic Two-Way Open teams competing in a tiebreaker round.
“Our dynamic four-way teams finished the event yesterday with a 0.3-second difference. So, it’s very tight. This is, you know, a very nail-biting event,” said Bombardi.
Michael Sopko and Samantha Gildersleeve from Virginia Beach emerged as the 2025 national champions in the Dynamic Two-Way Open.
“We flew two rounds. We won one, and the other team won the other round. So, we had to go to a tiebreaker round. It was a very nail-biter, edge-of-your-seat moment for us,” said Sopko.
Sopko described one of the rounds as a speed round, “basically what we do is you have a set path that you have to fly throughout the wind tunnel that involves what we call carving or horizontally orbiting around, verticals or going up and around in a vertical type orbit, and then a maneuver called a mixer, where we kind of crisscross and interlace in figure-eight or circle type patterns,” he said.
Having placed eleventh last year at the world championship in Belgium, Sopko and Gildersleeve are now looking forward to competing for a world title in France.
“We went to Belgium this past year for the world championship, and we flew well, but we’ve done a ton of training since then, so we’re very excited to go back over to Europe and represent Team USA again,” said Sopko.
The winners of this weekend’s event will have the opportunity to compete for a world title in France, showcasing their skills on an international stage.
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