posted Apr 24th, 2008 - Two teams from the Netherlands, Turbulence and Orange Blue, competed last weekend at the April meet of the Florida Skydiving League and continued with visits of Dutch teams in DeLand this year. The director of the Dutch Skydiving League, Center Inside Marloes Swarthoff, left DeLand with her own team, Pulse, just a little bit too early for the meet.

In fact, Team Pulse consists of the complete league management, not only of the Dutch Skydiving League. Gerhard Schut, Center Outside for Pulse, is the webmaster of the league's sophisticated website and is also creating the new website for the ESL Championship 2008.

Pulse videographer Mike Pennock is one of the three founders of the European Skydiving League, which will be held for the 6th time this year. Mike Pennock represented the Netherlands when the ESL was founded, Willy Boeykens from Belgium and Dr. Rainer "Exi" Hoenle from Germany worked together with him to hold the first ESL Championship in 2003.

The NSL News used the opportunity of the Pulse training in DeLand for an update from the Netherlands and of the ESL Championship and invited the three Pulse members for a live interview to the NSL office.

Mieke Mulder (Point) and Jacco van Eerden (Tail) complete the Pulse lineup, which is identical with last year's. Pulse was founded in 2006, attended three meets, including the ESL Championship, and finished each of the three 10-round meets with an 11.4 meet average. The same lineup continued throughout the 2007 season (14.9 - 15.4) and now prepares for this year's events.

The Pulse training camp in DeLand was successful, and Mike Pennock has uploaded a lot of footage to the team's website. Pulse will surely be once again one of the top teams in the Netherlands this year.

The interview with the NSL News was focused mostly on the ESL Championship 2008. This event has become very popular in Europe. The special event format makes it very exciting for teams of all competition classes to participate. The scores of the best four teams of each country in each of the four competition classes combine for the overall results.

The Spa Skydiving Center has hosted the first five ESL Championship events ever since the inauguration of the event. This year, the competition moves to a new location. The ESL managers discussed the options for a new location and decided to let the defending champion, the Netherlands, pick the host for this year's event.

The Paracentrum Texel is the new host for the ESL Championship 2008, which is scheduled for September 5 - 7. Mike Pennock has already started to work on the logistics of the competition, as he explained some of the details in the NSL News interview. The first bulletin with the basic information can be downloaded by clicking here.

The Paracentrum Texel was founded in 1969 on the beautiful Dutch Island Texel and has been contributing to the Dutch skydive community. It has also been the summer home for 4-way world champion and coach Gary Smith for many years. The skydiving center is specialized on tandems and students courses. However, several big events have been held on the island, including Dutch national championships. The Paracentrum Texel makes approx. 20.000 jumps per year over the summer months with two Cessna 208 Caravans.

There are hardly any flight restrictions on Texel. Jump altitude is unlimited, and the competition will have priority over any other local traffic. The airport management even extended the regular landing area to the front of the airport restaurant. The skydiving center will operate the competition between 9:00 am and 7:00 pm on Friday and Saturday, beginning on 10:00 am on Sunday.

The island of Texel can be reached only by ferry. Mike Pennock announced that the participants' boat ride to the competition site will be free, and it starts from the city of Den Helder. The ferry company TESO sponsors the event with the free passage. There is also public transportation on the island, however, cars can be ferried, as well. The event flyer offers more information.

The Netherlands won last year's event with a total of 202 points after a short 2-round competition due to bad weather. The United Kingdom placed second with 154 points, Belgium was in third place with 89 points. Several European top teams are expected to compete for their nations again this year, including Hayabusa Defence, the ESL Champion of the past years. Mike Pennock and his staff invites teams from overseas to attend the competition, as well.