Metro Atlanta Skydivers Win National Championships

ATLANTA – Five metro Atlanta residents won gold medals earlier this week in the advanced vertical formation skydiving event at the U.S. Parachute Association National Skydiving Championships at Skydive Paraclete XP in Raeford, North Carolina. Their team, ATLiens, is based at Skydive the Farm in Cedartown, Georgia.

In vertical formation skydiving, 4-person teams exit the airplane more than two miles above the ground and perform acrobatic maneuvers in freefall on upright and upside-down axes to complete as many pre-designated formations as possible in time. A videographer jumps with the team to capture the maneuvers for the judges on the ground.

The team includes Stephen Becker, 41, a surgeon for WellStar; Harrel Kimball, 33, an instructor at the iFLY indoor skydiving wind tunnel; Greg Lightfoot, 31, an engineer for Mailchimp; Justin Lovell, 30, an engineer; and videographer Raymond Adams, 48, a professional photographer.

The 2019 USPA National Skydiving Championships is drawing nearly 600 of the country’s top skydivers to Raeford for the biggest and most thrilling skydiving competition in the country. The event continues through September 27 and is free and open to the public.

Founded in 1946, the United States Parachute Association (USPA) is a non-profit association dedicated to the promotion of safe skydiving nationwide, establishing strict safety standards, training policies and programs at more than 220 USPA-affiliated skydiving schools and centers throughout the United States. Each year, USPA’s 41,000 members and hundreds of thousands of first-timers make roughly 3.3 million jumps in the U.S. USPA represents skydivers before all levels of government, the public and the aviation industry and sanctions national skydiving competitions and records.