At Vichy, France, in 1988, there was a miscarriage of justice in the 8-Way Event placings and it caused an incident at the Farewell Banquet.  

Most of the teams arrived at the venue early and were enjoying a few drinks when the winners of the 8-Way Event, the USA Team arrived.   There were about 1,000 people seated at large trestle tables and as the US Team entered the hall and walked between the tables, some competitors started to chant "Rejump - Rejump - Rejump", as the team progressed down the aisle between the tables, the whole crowd joined in the chant, the team had to walk the full length of the very large hall and by the time they were half way down the aisle, the tables were being thumped in time to the chant.   It appeared to be getting out of hand and the organisers sent runners around the tables to quieten people by yelling "It was the Jury".   The commotion was just settling down when the silver medallists, the Australian Team arrived and had to make there way through a crowd to make its way down the aisle.  A shout went up and the whole hall gave a standing ovation to the Australians in the same way that they had chanted for the Americans, the standing ovation continued until the Aussie team made it all the way down the aisle to their table.

What brought this on was a chain of unusual circumstances.   This meet was the first Mondial (All parachuting events except Para-Ski held together in one location)   The canopy event was a World Championship and the rest of the events were World Cups.   There were only a few qualified FAI jurors present and dealing with all events they were kept busy from early morning to late afternoon every day.   The USA teams had a number of protests before the Jury all of which they won.   One of them controversial but all of them fair.

The reason for the reaction at the banquet was that on one of its jumps the USA 8-Way Canopy Formation Team was plainly seen by everybody watching on the ground not to build an 8-way formation and that should have put them out of all contention.   Because of the number of protests files by the USA, participants took it granted that the team had been given a rejump of the botched round by the Jury.

In fact, what really happened was that during the jump where the team had not built the 8-way formation, the  formation went through cloud for a short time and the ground-to-air video operator lost the team in the viewfinder and the team was given a rejump by the Judges because the video had lost them.

To this day, few of the people that were there know what really happened.

It was a bad break for the Aussie team but it was not the fault of the USA competitors, it was a video operator who after all cannot be expected to be infallible.

To make things worse for the Aussie team, after the 9th jump, they were quite sure that they could win the competition with a better time than the Americans on that last jump, but they never got the chance to prove it.

The last round was to be jumped on the last day of the meet which was a Saturday.  The teams sat waiting for a call to finish the last round and by lunch time were becoming agitated because the weather was perfect and they had not been called to jump.   The Jury was locked into dealing with protests and was not aware of the situation.   At 4.00 pm a competitor asked for permission to interrupt the Jury and make it aware of what was happening.   As soon as the Jury was aware of the problem, it sent a runner to order the Meet Director to give priority to the World Championships and summoned him to explain why the competitors had not been called to jump the last round.

The Jury completed the case it was hearing and as the teams had not been called and the Meet Director had not appeared they made urgent enquiries as to his whereabouts.   One of the French competitors came to see the Jury and apologised for the problem (It is not known if the competitor was sent by the Meet Director or went of his own accord).    Asked what was the reason for the break in the world championship event, he commented that he thought that one of the Pilatus Porters had been sent home to its home dropzone to carry on its regular duties and so there was a shortage of aircraft.    As the accuracy event was running full bore, the Jury went looking for the Meet Director to force him to give priority to the World event.   While trying to find the Meet Director (there were two dropzones) the competition came to a close and it was obvious that there was not sufficient time left to complete the last round of the WPC even if a start was made immediately.    

At this stage of an international parachuting event all of the officials are extremely busy, the results must be confirmed and printed in a short space of time, the the Jury must receive verified reports from the Judges and officials and hold its last meeting and declare the competition valid.  The Meet Director sent his signed report via a messenger and when confronted by the Jury president, either did not or would not speak English and had no interpreter present.    There never was an explanation given as to why the World Cup accuracy event was given precedence over the World Championships canopy formation event. 

At the time of the Banquet incident even the Jury was not aware of the fact that the USA Team had been awarded a rejump by the judges because of missed television coverage.

The meet was run with heavy media involvement and the finals of the Accuracy World Cup were being televised.    Apparently the Meet Director chose to use his depleted aircraft resources to keep his media obligations.    He was severely reprimanded and since that occasion, the FAI Parachuting Commission requires a US$20,000 bond that is confiscated if the organiser does not conduct the meet as required by the FAI Parachuting Commission.   

The US$20,000 (known colloquially as the "Vichy Rule") was forfeited by one organiser since then for a similar offence of withholding aircraft from the competition and so failing to complete the last round of the competition.    Another organiser lost part of the bond to reimburse competitors for transport to the airport promised but not supplied by the organiser.