CHICAGO – Chicago resident Alexey Galda is heading to the 2019 World Cup of Wingsuit Flying in Ravenna, Italy, later this month as a member of the prestigious U.S. Parachute Team.
Galda will go up against nearly 100 of the best wingsuit skydivers from around the globe at the World Cup Aug. 23-29. Galda earned his place on the U.S. Parachute Team, the nation’s most elite aerial athletes, by winning silver at the 2018 U.S. Parachute Association National Championships.

With the growth of wingsuit skydiving over the past few years, more skydivers are taking up this exciting discipline. In wingsuit skydiving, jumpers wear technologically advanced suits that are specially designed to increase their horizontal glide across the ground, allowing them to soar like birds through the sky at horizontal speeds approaching 200 mph. In the performance flying event, individual competitors are scored on their horizontal distance, flight time and speed as they zoom across the sky.
Galda, 32, works as a physics research assistant professor at the University of Chicago. He trains locally at Chicagoland Skydiving Center in Rochelle.
About USPA
Founded in 1946, the United States Parachute Association (USPA) is a non-profit association dedicated to the promotion of safe skydiving nationwide, establishing strict safety standards, training policies and programs at more than 220 USPA-affiliated skydiving schools and centers throughout the United States. Each year, USPA’s 41,000 members and hundreds of thousands of first-timers make roughly 3.3 million jumps in the U.S. USPA represents skydivers before all levels of government, the public and the aviation industry and sanctions national skydiving competitions and records.