posted Aug 3rd, 2008 - The World Meet 2008 is only eight days away, and the NSL pages of the event have received the last touch leading into the event. Polls for all three events have now been added to the previews, and it is time to vote for the teams that are expected to win medals.

No scores of any of the national teams will be posted from here on, it is time to only focus on the most relevant Formation Skydiving competition of the sport. Most of the teams have posted scores at different meets this year, including the top contenders for medals in France.

The NSL News audience has eight days to vote for the teams in each category, 4-way Open, 4-way Women and 8-way. The results of the polls can be reviewed at any time. The pages with the polls also allow the audience to post comments.

The NSL News coverage of the FAI World Meet 2008 is brought to you with the help of:

Trude Sviggum, Center Outside for the Norwegian female lineup Fortitudo, caught the NSL News right at the time when the polls were installed and was the first visitor who submitted a vote.

Fortitudo has already trained on competition site in Maubeuge in July. The first week of the July camp was bothered by bad weather, but the second week was very good for the Norwegian team, as Trude Sviggum reported. The Fortitudo members then went back to Norway for a week and return to Maubeuge this Monday for the last training period.

Bodyflight Storm, Aerokart Deep Blue and Fortitudo will win the medals in the female category, according to the polls after Trude Sviggum submitted her vote...

The event pages also still offer the results of the World Meet 2006 in Germany. Reviewing the scores of the last world meet could possibly help to make a decision. It was a short competition in Germany caused by bad weather. However, the results might bring back memories of the exciting action in all events.

DeLand Fire (Natasha Montgomery, Shannon Pilcher, Gary Smith, Ian Bobo, Jonathan Taggle on camera) had created a 6-point lead after five rounds and took Excalibur back to DeLand. There was a very close race for the silver and bronze medals. France in second place was only one point ahead of Italy's Sinapsi PD, and the Russian Sky Panthers followed another single point behind.

The USA has a new national team, Airspeed Odyssey will compete in France and is considered the top contender for the gold medals.

France has a new 4-way lineup, as well. The four team members who will compete in Maubeuge next week (Guillaume Bernier, Mathieu Bernier, Julien Degen, Jeremie Rollet and Alexandre Pereira on camera) were members of the French 8-way team in Germany. They will now compete in 4-way and 8-way next week.

Italy's bronze medalists of 2006 (Arianna de Benedetti, Livio Piccolo, Luca Marchioro, Pete Allum, Luca Poretti on camera) will not be competing in Maubeuge.

The Spin Team is Italy's new national 4-way team.

Only Russia's Sky Panthers will return with the identical lineup of 2006. Michail Kuznetsov, Vladimir Pavlenko, Oleg Shalamykhin, Sergej Shenin and Andrey Seliverstov on camera missed a set of world meet medals by only a few points. They will surely be in the race for the top positions again this year.

Norway's national team Arcteryx was in 5th place in 2006, five points behind the bronze medal position. Mathias Nord has replaced Center Inside Tore Buer, and Derek Broughton has taken the Point position ever since Oyvind Buer left the team. Arcteryx of 2008 is very well prepared and has only the medal positions in mind.

Belgium's current Hayabusa Defence lineup (David Grauwels - Center Outside, Andy Grauwels - Point, Roy Janssen - Tail, Luc Verstrepen - Center Inside, with Danny Jacobs on camera) is probably the strongest underdog in the race for the medals. In fact, Hayabusa is the FAI World Cup champion of 2007.

Belgium finished in 6th place in Germany 2006. Sven Ibens was the Center Inside by then, Luc Verstrepen took the slot at the end of the 2006 season. The Belgian team has been training full time ever since David and Andy Grauwels and Roy Janssen joined the Belgian Army.

Another underdog of 2008 finished in 9th place in 2006. Canada's family team Evolution (Michel, Martin, Vincent and Benoit LeMay, plus videographer Daniel Paquette) was not complete in Germany. Francois Pigeon competed for Canada while Benoit LeMay was still packing for his family. He has been the Point for Evolution ever since, and the Canadian team has already posted very impressive scores this year.

This brief overview of the top contenders in the 4-way Open Class competition will hopefully make it easier to submit a vote in the polls for the events. The NSL News will follow up with more information of the other two categories, as well.