posted Aug 28th, 2008 - CSC Rhythm XP, the German team Jerry's Birds and Skyservice from the Czech Republic lost their top positions on last weekend's leaderboard today when the scores from France came in. The national championship was held in Pau, and the weather cooperated well enough this time to complete seven rounds.

The NSL News had reported earlier this year how all previous three meets of the Coupe de France were completely weathered out, except one single round on July 5. There were also weather problems at the World Meet 2008, where each event missed a few rounds. French IPC Delegate Gill Winter happily reported much better weather on the first day of the national championship last week:

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

"We awoke to blue skies. The pyreneen mountains look magnificent from the Pau drop zone. The first load has taken off, and as the weather is good for the next two days, it looks as though we are going to have a real competition this time..."

The teams from the Midwest Skydiving League, Germany and the Czech Republic had to accept five teams from France taking over the top of the leaderboard. These five teams do not include the national 4-way team Maubeuge, which won the silver medals at the World Meet one point behind Airspeed Odyssey, and the French national female lineup Deep Blue.

However, the teams in the first three positions are also well trained and represent the French B-Team lineups. The team members will soon be recruited for the new French 8-way team.

The winning team, Aerokart Mamba Pamiers, has two player coaches in the lineup, Clement Martin-Saint-Leon and Emmanuel Sarrazin, who just won their second set of 8-way gold medals in Maubeuge.

The team in second place, Maubeuge Nice Cypres, consists of four B-Team members, while Amada Gap in 3rd place has former 4-way world champion Martial Ferré as a player coach in the lineup. The ten B-Team members of three teams (Arno Mille, Julien Olek, Patrick Boulongne, Sylvain Girault, Charles Graveleau, Thomas Perrin Gachadoat, Florian Thiebaut, Guillaume Bajolet, Florian Denonfoux, William Hamouchi) will now drop 4-way and begin with the 8-way training. The new French national lineups are already planning their trip to the USPA Nationals 2008, as national coach Jerome David reported on 27 May 2008.

The team in 5th place, White Nice Pujaut, the last one that placed ahead of former leader CSC Rhythm, is probably also familiar to the NSL News audience. The "Whites" were competing with the "Blues" for the French slot as the national team in the female category. The Whites (Christele Askew, Julie Levie, Emanuelle Nicols, Isabelle Sell Nore, Thierry Simonnet on camera) lost the weather delayed qualification in July after four rounds (68 - 79, 17.0 - 19.2).

The Blues (Sophie Deremaux, Bérangère Duplouy, Françoise Simons-Hamouchi, Amélie Tirman, Christophe Chekroun on camera) moved on and won the bronze medals for France behind Bodyflight Storm (20.0) and Fastrax Blue (19.8) again with a 19.2 average, this time after six rounds in Maubeuge. The Blues did not compete at the national championship last week.