Brave locals leap into the skydiving history books

Six daredevil Meath parachutists were among those who took part in last week"s record-breaking skydive in Offaly. On Wednesday, the squad of elite skydivers smashed the record for the largest formation of Irish skydivers linked in freefall. The All-Ireland team built a 51-person formation over the skies of County Offaly. Among the parachutists taking part were Philip Cox from Ashbourne, Cónall Kelly, Ratoath, Conor King, Ashbourne, Gary Traynor, Laytown, and external cameraman Dave Clarke from Navan, who was also photographing the event. Navan-based Garda Martina Brant also took part and Paul McGovern from Navan was on the training jumps and part of the wider support team. The 51 skydivers exited four aircraft flying in close formation at 14,000 feet, and landed in the history books three minutes later. They had 60 seconds to build the formation followed by a two-minute parachute descent to the ground. They broke the current record 36-person formation set by this team on Monday. The All-Ireland 51-person formation included nine female skydivers and seven from Northern Ireland. The youngest skydiver on the team was Kyle Van Balderen, from Tullamore, Co Offaly who turned 17 only a few weeks ago - the eldest is 56 years. Cónall Kelly, Dave Clarke and Conor King have previously represented Ireland in international skydiving competitions as part of the Irish National team. 'Although the world record is 400 and the British record is 100, the Irish record is particularly impressive when you consider the small number of skydivers we have in Ireland to draw from. We needed pretty much everybody we could get to be able to pull this together at the right time,' Conor King explained. The team had been training for the jump over a number of weekends during the summer and even used wind tunnel training in the UK to practice some of the skills needed. 'There were training jumps on Saturday and Sunday and then the record attempts on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday,' Dave Clarke from Garlow Cross explains, adding that there had been four months of training beforehand. Dave himself had 2,000 jumps under his belt previous to last week, Philip Cox, 250; Cónall Kelly - 750; Conor King - 2,800; Gary Traynor - 280. Team Captain Gordon Hodgkinson said: 'The talent in Irish skydiving has shot up in recent years and building the largest all-Irish formation is one way to showcase our growing expertise. A 51-person formation is an amazing achievement for the size of the skydiving population in Ireland; the sport is growing fast and this team included people who did their first jump just last year. 'I"m amazed at how talented this team is and after a weekend of meditteranian weather, the team kept their focus whilst we waited through some cloudy weather over the past day and a half - and all of them delivered the goods on only our second attempt at the 51.'