This summer, Old Lyme native Jeff Harrigan and his team won a gold medal in acrobatic wingsuit flying at the national championships.

Now, they have become world cup champions.   

Team Flatspin won a gold medal in acrobatic wingsuit flying in November at the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale Wingsuit Flying World Cup in Zephyrhills, Fla. The competition — held this year for the first time ever — brought together teams from the United States, Russia, Finland, Great Britain, South Africa, and Switzerland.

Harrigan said he and his teammates, Sarah Chamberlain of Simsbury and Mark Krasinski of Somers, weren't sure what to expect at the beginning of the first-of-its-kind competition, but were thrilled with the results.

"We were thrilled to have actually had all the hard work pay off in a way we didn't necessarily expect," he said.

During acrobatic wingsuit flying, skydivers wear special suits that magnify their movement in the sky.  

At the world cup, Team Flatspin dove from an airplane 12,500 ft. from the ground and participated in the acrobatic competition. Like at the U.S. Parachute Association National Championships of Wingsuit Flying in Rochelle, Ill. in August, the team performed both compulsory routines and free routines  that the team members designed themselves. 

Mark Krasinski, the team's videographer, said he and his teammates had competed before against other teams in the U.S., but weren't sure what to expect for the World Cup. When they met the other teams, they found there was a lot of comraderie and they enjoyed seeing the teams' different approaches.

"We're competing hard against each other, but we're really just a big group of friends," he said.

Chamberlain said the team "had a great time and it was an honor to fly with some of the best wingsuiters in the world."

Harrigan, who now lives in Coventry, is a 2007 graduate of Lyme-Old Lyme High School who first picked up the sport of skydiving at the University of Connecticut.

Harrigan said he and his Flatspin teammates started competing to have fun and see how they would do, but the recent national gold medal — and now the gold in the World Cup have "galvanized us to focus more on the competitive side of things and really see how far we can take it."

Their immediate future consists of fun-jumping, where they will go out to the drop zone and skydive with their friends for fun. They plan to continue to train for nationals and try to get to the World Cup again, if the opportunity arises, he said.

After the World Cup, team Flatspin and the other teams got to share their perspectives on rules or logistics that they thought could improve the competition for the future, and Harrigan said he enjoyed providing input "for the future generations of wingsuiting."

"One of the cool things about this being the first competition of its kind and the discipline being as young as it is, is that we get to have a say in how it's going to evolve," Harrigan said. 

k.drelich@theday.com