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National Skydiving Championship descends on Riverside County
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Sep 21, 2017
Listen 3:49
National Skydiving Championship descends on Riverside County
It's a bird! It's a plane! It's hundreds of skydivers competing for a national title in wingsuit gliding!
SAN FRANCISCO - AUGUST 05:  Synchronized Skydivers land at Pier 39 to celebrate the launch of the T-Mobile myTouch 3G phone with Google on August 5, 2009 in San Francisco, California.  (Photo by John Medina/Getty Images for T-Mobile)
Two skydivers.
(
John Medina/Getty Images for T-Mobile
)

It's a bird! It's a plane! It's hundreds of skydivers competing for a national title in wingsuit gliding!

In the world of sports, there's one competition that literally stands above the rest: the National Sky-Diving Championship.

More than 500 daredevils have dropped into the town of Perris in Riverside County this month to compete in the games.

"Anyone who comes out can see lots of colorful parachutes descending from the sky," says Nancy Koreen, director of sports promotions for the U.S. Parachute Association which puts on the championship. 

"You can't really see the formations from the ground," she says, "but the teams have videographers who jump." 

The videographers, who are members of each skydiving team, record the jump on cameras attached to their helmets.

The footage is then reviewed by the judges for scoring.

The criteria varies depending on the category of jump.

For the wingsuit competition earlier this week, it all came down to airtime.

 "[You] get scored on the amount of time and also how far across the ground horizontally, how much distance [you] can cover," says Koreen. "It takes practice. Just like any other sport would."

To listen to the full interview, use the blue media player above.