posted Jun 17th, 2008 - The NSL News has mentioned the Russian Nationals 2008 several times this year, as it is the qualification event for this year's World Championship of Formation Skydiving. It was scheduled for this week to give the winning team enough time to prepare for the World Meet in France.

The competition began today, and a total of 13 teams have signed up for the AAA/Open Class, including all the teams that are aiming at the Russian tickets to France. This race has been mostly a duel between the Sky Panthers and Black Cat in the past. However, other Russian top teams, as Crossroads and Sky Tech BBC, have also been scoring on a level in the past that was very competitive. A few new teams, as Ocean 5, were also hoping to end up on the top of the Russian leaderboard.

The national teams of other countries and the top contenders for medals at this year's World Meet are also watching very carefully what is recently going on in Russia. The NSL News story on 13 May 2008 explained that the best Russian teams have always been serious contenders for the medal positions at the major events. This year's Russian national 4-way team will surely aim at medals in France in August.

The 13-team field includes three female lineups that try to win and represent Russia at the World Meet 2007. Team Escape was already introduced by the NSL News with the story on 9 May 2008. Escape seemed to be the favorite in the female category at that time.

The situation in the female category became more interesting when the lineup of a new team, Joggy Bussi, was registered. Alena Chistova, former Russian 8-way member, is competing with three other experienced female competitors this week. Vitalia Kupriyanenko trained and competed with the JetBats. Anna Panasuk and Katya Kharitonona are both very well trained members of Kaktus Hunter.

Kaktus Hunter was introduced by the NSL News with the story on 16 February 2008, and meet videos of the team's performance at the World Challenge 2008 were posted on 13 May 2008. The Joggy Bussi lineup made only 15 jumps and spent two hours in the windtunnel before this weekend's national championship. However, the new team might even be the strongest female lineup in the field.

The competition site of the Russian Nationals 2008 is in Puschino. The distance to Moscow is about the same as from Stupino, the former hosting site of the Malevsky Cup. The jump plane is a LET 410 with a left-hand door. The international judging panel consists of three Russian judges and three visiting judges from Slovenia, Germany and Sweden.

The NSL News will follow up with scores of the first competition jumps very soon.