posted May 9th, 2008 - The NSL News story on 4 May 2008 covered the current situation in the female 4-way category. The article mentioned that there was still a questionmark behind the reigning bronze medalist of 2006, Russia.

The Russian bronze medalist of the World Championship 2006 was Ladybirds (Elena Mazaeva, Anna Panasyuk, Larisa Sverdlenko, Ekaterina Voronina) with a 14.6 average after five rounds in Germany.

Russia is also the reigning silver medalist of the FAI World Cup in Russia 2007. The JetBats (Alena Chistova, Zhanna Kazakova, Vitaliya Kupriyanenko, Varvara Sadovnikova) represented Russia last year on home turf and finished in second place with a 15.0 average.

The NSL News now received information from Russia that neither of these two teams have continued. It will be very difficult for Russia to defend the bronze medal position successfully this August in France.

There is a new female lineup that will probably win the qualification as the Russian national team in 2008. "Escape" consists of two former JetBats members, Center Inside Zhanna Kazakova and the original Tail of the team, Varya Sadovnikova, who became the alternate for the JetBats after an injury in 2007.

The other team members are Maria Serova in the Center Outside position and Point Katya Voronina. Maria Serova trained and competed with an A Class team in 2006 that won bronze medals at the Russian national championship that year. Katya Voronina is a former Ladybirds member of the early years.

There are two other female 4-way lineups currently in Russia. However, Escape seems to have the best chances to qualify to as the Russian national team for this year's World Meet in France. The qualification event is scheduled for June.

Escape has not trained yet from a Pilatus Porter, and it will probably be impossible for the new Russian national team to keep up with the top contenders in the female category, UK's Bodyflight Storm, one of the two French lineups (Deep Blue or White and See), USA Fastrax Blue and Norway's team Fortitudo.