A Thornton man who has spent two decades hurling himself out of airplanes is about to find out how he stacks up against the best speed skydivers on Earth. Matt Fry is headed to Eloy, Arizona this month to compete in the World Air Sports Federation World Championships, bringing with him a personal-best speed record of 334 miles per hour that he set earlier this year.
Fry's trip to Arizona comes on the heels of a big title back home. In September, he won the first-ever combined vertical free fall champion title in Zephyrhills, Florida, a new designation that recognizes a skydiver who excels across multiple categories rather than just one discipline, according to Westword. The upcoming World Championships, however, are squarely about speed.
The event Fry is traveling to is massive by any measure. The 2026 FAI World Skydiving Championships at Skydive Arizona in Eloy run October 18 through October 24 and combine five distinct world championships into a single week, including the 6th FAI World Speed Skydiving Championship, according to Skydive Arizona. Fry has also received an invitation to the FAI 2027 World Championship, Westword reports, giving him another shot down the line regardless of how this trip to Eloy goes.
What It Actually Means to Fly at 300-Plus MPH
Speed skydiving looks nothing like the belly-to-earth freefall most people picture. Competitors keep their heads pointed 90 degrees toward the ground, minimizing drag to push well past the roughly 120 mph terminal velocity of standard skydiving, according to a physics breakdown from Skydive Orange, which notes that head-down speed skydivers can exceed 300 mph in freefall. Each jump gives an athlete only about a minute to actually work on technique before parachute deployment, Westword reports, even though getting back into the sky after landing can take upwards of an hour.
The scoring itself isn't left to judges' eyes. An athlete-mounted GPS device records the jump, and the official score is the fastest three-second average inside the scoring window, per Skydive Arizona. That technical detail matters because Fry is chasing a very specific number: Sebastian Garcia's 2024 mark of 335.24 miles per hour, a record that currently sits just ahead of Fry's own personal best, according to Westword.
A Colorado Skydiver Built Through Two Decades in the Sport
Fry's path into the sport started far from the mountains. He began skydiving in Virginia during college in 2005, completing a tandem jump as his very first dive before later finishing a six-hour accelerated free fall class — a licensing program that lets newcomers learn to jump without being strapped to an instructor, per Westword. He moved to Colorado in 2013 and later trained at a drop zone in Arizona, eventually settling into a routine that spans speed, vertical and mixed formation skydiving.
Jumping out of Colorado comes with its own built-in obstacles. The Denver metro area has two drop zones, but the state's high elevation and volatile weather limit how high skydivers can go and often force extended ground time when winds pick up or conditions shift, Fry told Westword. He's competed internationally before, including a trip to Siberia in 2022, giving him a frame of reference for how different conditions around the world can shape a jump.
Beyond Solo Speed: A Role in Record-Setting Formations
Fry's ambitions extend past individual competition. He serves as a lead co-organizer, alongside Rook Nelson, for international 200-way head-down vertical formation world record attempts at Skydive Chicago, according to Skydivemag. Those attempts require coordinating roughly 200 skydivers into a single structured shape in freefall, a feat of aerial engineering distinct from the solo sprint of speed skydiving.
A Deep Field of American Talent Heading to Eloy
Fry won't be flying solo in Arizona. He qualified for the USA Speed Skydiving National Team alongside Niklas Daniel and Michael Goodwin, with the three-person squad posting a combined aggregate average speed of 511.85 km/h, according to reporting from AXIS Flight School. At the 2025 USPA Speed Skydiving Nationals at Skydive Elsinore, California, Fry placed second overall and officially joined the sport's elite 500 Club by exceeding 500 km/h in competition, becoming just the sixth competitor in history to hold speeds over 500 km/h across all eight rounds of a single event, the outlet reports.
Fry's international standing backs up that performance. He holds an International Speed Skydiving Association Global Eternal Ranking of #8, built on a personal competition speed mark of 515.56 km/h, according to Fry Formations. A year earlier, at the 2024 USPA National Skydiving Championships, Fry earned bronze in speed skydiving, holding off competitor Brianne Thompson by a 6.5 km/h margin in the final round, the AXIS Flight School recap notes.
His own teammate may prove to be the toughest competition of all. Niklas Daniel set an Arizona state speed skydiving record of 576.437 km/h, or roughly 358 mph, during an August training jump at Skydive Arizona ahead of the World Championships — a number that puts the American contingent's depth on full display. For Fry, the week in Eloy represents a chance to close the gap between his recent national podium finishes and the international record still held just out of reach.
For now, Fry says his motivation isn't tied to any single number. He wants to be the best, he told Westword, but says his real satisfaction comes from simply improving on yesterday, last month or last year — a mindset that has him planning to keep skydiving for as long as he possibly can.
