Kota Kinabalu: Sixteen going up to 19 within two hours! That was fast the women sky diving formation record in Malaysia was created and broken at the Borneo Boogie 2002 here Sunday.

Organisers initially were not even certain they could achieve their record objective when the first load of sky divers took off at 8.30am in a Malaysian Air Force Hercules 130, withnessed by Chief Minister Datuk Chong Kah Kiat, wife Datin Ivy and their children.

But they did it in that first attempt and jump supervisor Kate Cooper decided to put 19 women into the act in the second jump of the day which took off at 10.20am and they cracked their own record!

The incident is testimony of the benefit of record setting, as it creates both a bench mark and incentive as people strive to better the mark.

"It was a wonderful record jump," Cooper told Daily Express.

"We had women from all over the world - the US, France, Switzerland, Canada, The Netherlands, Denmark, Germany, United Kingdom and others, many different levels of experience and they all came together as a team and performed the sky diving," she said.

On the first record formation, Cooper described it as thus: "The pattern was quardal Wedge and then there were pieces coming out called quad wedges.

"Then we did what is called sequentiel where we dropped the centre, did a 36-degree turn with the centre four the redocked the wedges. After that, we went to a big round star," Cooper said.

On the result, she said: "I am very happy. It was better than I expected."

With this sky diving record setting being set in motion, sky diving events may have been positioned to expand.

Derick Thomas, Managing Director of Exotic Sky Adventures had already said a world record setting jump has been planned for October 2003 when over 300 sky divers will be broought in for the purpose.