posted Sep 6th, 2008 - It is no mystery any longer, the Texel Airport team is identical with the lineup of the Dutch national 4-way team, Dynamic Fource (Paul Hofstee - Center Outside, Erwin van den Braak - Center Inside, Meüs van der Poel - Tail, Koen van der Venne - Point, Hans van Marrewijk on camera).

Gary Smith reported from Texel that the team he has been coaching throughout the 2008 season used a different name since the Texel Airport sponsored the team's registration fee for the ESL Championship 2008. Dynamic Fource is the main pointgetter for the Dutch delegation and controls the AAA Class competition on Texel so far.

The Dutch national team performed already very well at the World Meet 2008 and raced with the Italian Spin Team for the unofficial title of the best amateur team in the world. The Spin Team won by two single points, and Dynamic Fource finished with an 18.4 average in 8th place.

The Dutch team is currently seven points ahead of UK team Satori. Gary Smith said that the British team is not up to its usual scoring level yet due to five point deductions in the first two rounds. It became even worse for Satori in Round 3.

Gary Smith explained what happened: "Satori fell out of the plane and and had to rebuild the first point. Then they ripped the jump..." It sounds as if the AAA Class competition could still become more interesting. The winner of the AAA Class competition will be the successor of Hayabusa Defence as the European Skydiving League champion of 2008.

The teams on Texel were waiting most of the day for better weather. Gary Smith said that there was an official weather hold where the teams met for a competitive gokart race. That was probably the reason why the sun came out not too much later, and the gokart race had to be stopped. However, strong winds still kept the teams on the ground before Round 3 could finally be completed.

The strong position in the AAA Class after three rounds and the Dutch lead in the A Class still did not change much yet for the position of the Netherlands in the race for the ESL Spirit.

However, it looks as if the UK delegation could not increase the lead in Round 3. The current total (305 - 280) to the advantage of the UK delegation does not include the score for the second Dutch Rookie Class team. 4igamie has a rejump and will probably add another good number to the Dutch account. In fact, the race for the ESL Spirit could even become closer as soon as the missing score will be posted.

However, the AA Class teams have already completed Round 4, and the UK power combination of Phantom - Phobia added three more points to the British lead. All other competition classes have not completed Round 3 yet.