posted Jun 25th, 2008 - There are still a few scores missing of last weekend's 4-way competitions in the USA and Europe, and it is already a new participation record. 80 teams are currently listed on last weekend's leaderboard, which is significantly higher than at any other meet weekend in the NSL history.

However, it was not only a weekend of record participation. The quality of the international field and the scores were on a world-class level, as well. The field of 32 AAA Class teams included six national teams who will compete at the World Meet 2008, which begins in 45 days: Airspeed Odyssey (USA), Hayabusa Defence (Belgium), Arcteryx (Norway), Dynamic Fource (Netherlands), Danish Blaze (Denmark), Fortitudo (Norway female).

Three of these 32 teams are even serious medal contenders for the World Meet in France. Airspeed Odyssey confirmed the very top position once again at the Paraclete XP Money Meet 2008 in Raeford. Arcteryx used the opportunity of a last competition experience during a training camp in Italy, while Hayabusa won the national championship of Belgium last weekend.

Hayabusa's team speaker, Tail Roy Janssen, provided the NSL News with an update after the exciting meet weekend where the top teams studied each other's scores on the NSL leaderboard very carefully. His team posted the 22.7 average jumping from the left-hand door of a Cessna Caravan. As all other national teams, Hayabusa has trained only from the right-hand door of the Pilatus Porter in preparation for the World Meet 2008. The Belgian national team was seven points behind Airspeed after nine rounds. Here is Roy Janssen's meet report from the Hayabusa perspective:

Belgian Nationals 2008

By Roy Janssen

The Nationals were held in Zwartberg, a dropzone in the East of Belgium. Twelve 4-way teams attended the meet his year, eight teams competed in the AAA Class. The jump plane for this meet was a Cesna Caravan.

Unfortunately, there was no Pilatus Porter available for the competitors this year. We would have preferred to jump out of the Pilatus instead a Cessna Caravan for obvious reasons. We have never jumped from a left-hand door even since the World Cup 2007. In general, it didn't cause too much trouble for us. Only the exits of Block 8 (Canadian T), Random Formations K (Hook) and N (Crank) were more challeging due to the fakt that we do them differently from the Porter. And it was so long that we did them from a left-hand door last time.

The meet was very relax for us, and it was more like catching up with old friends and having a good time. We feel that it is hard to focus 100% if there is no other team that is pushing you. Of course, this doesn't mean that we were not trying hard. We are pleased with the general performance of our team, even though we lost some points in a few rounds.

This year has been hard for us until April/May. After having a great season last year, we tried to push even harder, which made us lose track a bit. Our performance suffered badly for a while, but we think that all teams have their ups and downs. We had our bad period and then found our focus again. Eventually, the team came out even stronger.

We contacted Joey Jones after a 4-day camp in Eloy in March this year, and we talked about our situation. Very soon, we both were enthusiastic and made plans for more coaching. We started with Joey in May, and he fits really well to our team dynamics. We improved all of our block times since then, and the mental training starts paying of, as well. We still have a few camps to do with Joey before we go to Maubeuge.

We jumped the draw of the FSL Shamrock Showdown 2008 at the end of our training camp in June and scored a 24.1 average. Even with the little distance to Airspeed and France Maubeuge we are happy with the outcome considering the circumstances.

We think that the World Meet 2008 will be a very challeging competition, with many top contenders close to each other. It will be exciting for the spectators to watch it, and that is how it should be!