Time apart brings Belgium's skydiving 'family' to world dominance

WUHAN (CHN) - Being a close-knit family helped Belgium's men's formation skydiving team secure another international gold medal at Wuhan 2019 on Thursday.

However, rather than the 700 jumps a year they do together, Dennis PRAET (BEL) thinks the key to their world dominance lies in the few weeks a year they are apart.

"We spend so much time with each other that it's almost become a family. It's a lot of fun in a way, but it's also nice to get away from each other," PRAET said.

"Let us spend time with our wives, with our loved ones and with our family and that makes us happy when we see each other on training camps again, not being in each others' face all of the time.

"I think we have the perfect balance of working hard, being friends, doing stuff together and leaving each other to be with the family. That's the most important thing that we do.

"Let's say we do 700 jumps in a year together, then there's everything that comes in between that, all of the travels, the days off and everything.

"How many days is it in a year, 365? Then we probably see each other for 300 days a year," he said.

PRAET, Jeroen NOLLET (BEL) and brothers Andy and David GRAUWELS (BEL) have competed together since 2014 and handled the pressure as favourites well at Wuhan 2019, winning on 284 points over eight jumps, ahead of Qatar on 256 and Switzerland on 237.

PRAET said the memory of a missed gold medal eight years ago still triggers the team to keep winning.

"I stepped into the team in 2010 and in 2012 we had the first big world championship and came very, very, very close to winning," he said.

"And that feeling, I was going to say losing, but being second, that's a feeling you will never forget.

And I think that's always been our motivation, to say that 'that is never going to happen again'."

(Source: Xinhua News - Pictures: Christian Pierre)