UConn Skydiving Team Featuring Tolland Competitor Wins Gold at National Collegiate Parachuting Championships

STORRS, CT – The University of Connecticut skydiving team CT True Blue won a gold medal in the advanced-way formation skydiving event last week at the 2016 U.S. Parachute Association National Collegiate Parachuting Championships.

It is billed as the oldest and biggest collegiate skydiving event in the world and took place at Skydive Arizona, south of Phoenix.

The team’s was the only gold medalist unit that did not come from one of the military academies.

A delegation of nine UConn students joined 80 collegiate skydivers from around the country to compete for the title of national champion in four skydiving disciplines: Formation Skydiving, Vertical Formation Skydiving, Sport Accuracy and Classic Accuracy.

In four-way formation skydiving, the team leaps from an aircraft more than two miles above the ground and then races against the clock to form prescribed geometric formations in freefall before opening their parachutes.

CT True Blue team members are Stephanie Krar, a senior biology major from Southington; Joshua Reinert, a senior majoring in mechanical engineering from Tolland; Alexander Teskey, a sophomore majoring in materials science and engineering from Bakersfield, CA; and Andrew Yin, a sophomore majoring in mechanical engineering from Greenwich.

The UConn skydiving team jumps and trains at Connecticut Parachutists Inc. in Ellington.

Photo Credit: David Cherry/USPA