posted Aug 3rd, 2008 - The last scores of a meet weekend before the World Meet 2008 have been posted, and they came from Finland.

The next numbers on the NSL leaderboard will be the scores of Round 1 in Maubeuge...

One of the teams from Finland will also appear on the World Meet's leaderboard of the Open Class.

The Tigers (Joonas Karjalainen, Nina Kivilompolo, Erkki Kursukangas, Nadja Lönnroth, Markus Pitkänen) won the national championship last week and will represent the Scandinavian country in France.

The NSL News had falsely reported earlier that teams from Finland were not planning to make the trip to Maubeuge.

Tigers member Joonas Karjalainen informed the NSL News after the national championship that his team was prepared to compete at the World Meet.

The Tigers had a very busy 2-week period beginning at the end of July. The Finnish team competed at the Swedish Nationals 2008 in Gryttjom and defeated the best Swedish 4-way teams.

The Tigers ended up in first place with a 16.2 average, one single point ahead of the new Swedish 4-way champion, Evolution.

Two Swedish teams (Evolution, Blue Spirits), one international pickup team (Gryttjom International) and the archrival from Finland (Pro Team) gave the Tigers already a hard time in Sweden.

Blue Spirits even set a new Swedish record for a single round with the 27-pointer. However, the Tigers maintained the lead in Sweden until the end of the 10-round meet.

The tough race at the Swedish Nationals was apparently a great test for the national championship of Finland a week later.

The other top team from Finland, the Pro Team (Laura Miettinen - Tail, Kimmo Pohjola - Center Outside, Outi Pohjola - Point, Eija Suvala - Center Inside, Mikko Kajala - Camera), has been committed for a while to challenge the Tigers' dominating position of the past years in Finland.

The Pro Team ended up quite far behind the Tigers (14.8 - 16.2) in Sweden. However, the situation a week later in Finland was very different.

It became a serious battle between the two Scandinavian teams, which went back and forth over seven of the ten rounds.

The Pro Team took a 1-point lead in the meet opener, lost Round 2 by two points and then came back in Round 3 to catch up with the Tigers. Nothing changed in rounds four and five, both teams were tied in first place.

The Pro Team once again took a 1-point lead in Round 6, and the Tigers managed to fight back in Round 7. The two best Finnish teams were in a deadlock going into Round 8.

The Tigers had probably their best performance of the meet at the right time.

The 18-pointer in Round 8 was a great result for a challenging sequence (B-10-F-19), and the new Finnish 4-way champion created a 3-point lead with two more rounds to go.

The Tigers added another point to the lead in Round 9 and finished the national championship with a 15.4 average, four points ahead of the Pro Team.

The busiest time of the competition season is just coming to its peak for the Scandinavian teams.

The Tigers will have the next showdown with the Swedish team Evolution at the World Meet 2008.

In fact, the competition in Maubeuge will unofficially serve as the Scandinavian championship.

The best Scandinavian 4-way team, Arcteryx from Norway, will probably compete for a set of world meet medals.

Evolution (Sweden), Tigers (Finland) and Danish Blaze (Denmark) are in striking distance with each other and will compete for the Scandinavian "amateur title".