Colorado Skydiver Wins National Championship

RAEFORD, North Carolina (CBS4) - Nick Batsch of Denver won the individual canopy piloting crown at last weekend's parachuting national championships.

Batsch, 36, scored 835.562 points through three compulsory events -- distance, speed, and accuracy -- in taking the overall title at 2017 U.S. Parachute Association National Parachuting Championships.

The runner-up in the overall competition scored 788.735.

Batsch won the accuracy event and was runner-up in distance.

"This summer has been a crazy great year for me as a competitor," Batsch wrote in a Facebook post Monday. "I look forward to this years World Cup and cannot express what it has felt like to be in the place I am mentally and physically this year."

Batsch has now won the event five times.

The victory earns him a slot on the prestigious U.S. Parachute Team that will compete at the 2018 World Parachuting Championships in Poland.

In canopy piloting, often called "swooping," skydivers fly high-performance parachutes that can generate high vertical and horizontal speeds.

For the first time ever, the national championships this year included wingsuit flying.

Batsch trains at Mile-Hi Skydiving Center in Longmont.