The Drop

What is it?

The ISSA Earnest Holdford Memorial Sword is a perpetual trophy that is presented to the ISSA World Cup Series Champion at the end of each year. The competition consists of several individual international meets. The overall result is determined by the sum of an athlete’s two best competition results regardless of the number of events completed. The competitor with most points is declared ISSA Speed Skydiving World Cup Series Champion for that year. If a competitor elects not participate in some of the available meets, the result for that particular event is zero.

Origin & Design

This trophy was donated by Matthew Holford, a speed skydiver since 2003 and is dedicated to the memory of his grandfather Earnest Holford. Earnest served in the 10th Parachute Regiment (10 Para) of the British Army during WW2 and always dreamt of being able to fall “as fast as a hawk” instead of being limited by the static-line parachute deployment system used by the military. Although he completed a handful of free fall skydives after the war he did not live to see the advent of speed skydiving which would be the realization of his dream. In his later years he collected swords and after his passing Matty presented one of them to the ISSA to be the World Series Winner’s trophy. The sword was one of the props of the multiple Oscar winning 2000 film “Gladiator” starring Russel Crowe. Earnest had acquired the trophy from Universal Studios and Matty thought it an appropriate recognition of the individual, gladitatorial nature of speed skydiving.

The trophy was first presented in 2015 to Marco Wiederkehr without the wood plaque background. In 2018 Max Hurd sponsored the upgrade that gave the trophy its current look, adding the previous winners to the plaque dating all the way back to 2004. At 1 foot wide, 4 feet tall, and weighing in at 17lbs, the award is decorated with small individual gold plaques with every ISSA winner’s names. The trophy is passed on to new winners after the completion of each World Cup Series, rather than being kept by the winner indefinitely. For the first time in the competiton’s 20 year history, the sword can now be found in the United States at AXIS Flight School.

ISSA Champions 2004 – 2024