At the age of 17, the Polish high school student is one of about 20 top indoor skydiving competitors worldwide, who are pioneering the solo freestyle version of a sport they call 'flying'.
A video posted on Facebook of the athlete's performance, choreographed to Major Lazer's hit song 'Powerful', has gone viral, gathering 30.5 million views in just over a month.
Although there are still just a handful of people worldwide competing at the top level in the solo freestyle category, there is already talk of the sport making it to the Olympics.
'Indoor skydiving is the only aerobatic sports discipline that meets the criteria for being an Olympic discipline,' claims Bartosz Wiecek, manager of the Fly Spot vertical wind tunnel in Warsaw.
She was only outdone by Singapore's 14-year-old indoor skydiving sensation Kyra Poh, who won gold in the freestyle category, and Czech competitor Jakub Harrer, who took silver, according to the Wind Games 2017 official website.
Several vertical wind tunnels have popped up in Poland. They can operate around the clock and are much cheaper and safer than skydiving out of a plane.
There is also no age limit.
Ms Kuczynska says that when she started six years ago, she was among a handful of indoor skydiving children around the globe including two girls in Singapore and 'a couple of siblings in Dubai'.
'But now, half of the flyers at least, at competitions for freestyle, are kids!' she said.
At just nine years old, Polish 'flying' competitor Olga Lubak will head to Montreal in Canada, along with Maja, in October for the World Indoor Skydiving Championships.
For now, Olga is spending hours in the wind tunnel to perfect her routine.
'I'm really stressed out because I'm afraid of being last but I don't think that will happen,' she said, before being swept up in the wind tunnel in another series of 'flying' twists, turns and spins.
0 comments: