posted May 7th, 2012 - The NSL News mentioned on 1 May 2012 that Polaris, Norway's national team in the female 4way category, has been the highest scoring team from Scandinavia so far this year. It was the same story that covered Satori's situation after competing at the Paraclete XP Outdoor Championship 2012 and the World Challenge 2012. Polaris coach Steve Hamilton, who is also an XL regular, was a part of this story after filling the Tail slot for Satori in DeLand.

Steve Hamilton was a member of the last Sebastian XL lineup in 2003 and joins the annual XL reunions every year. However, his most important job in 2011 and 2012 has been the coaching work with Polaris, which has turned out very successfully so far. The NSL News has reported the team's progression on the way to the Mondial 2012 in Dubai.

Polaris' current top position of the Scandinavian 4way teams will surely be challenged all year long, and Bodyflight Voluntas, Denmark's national 4way team in the Open Class, has already moved much closer at the World Challenge. Teams from other Scandinavian countries (Finland, Sweden) have not posted any scores so far.

June 5th, 2010		Round1	Round2	Round3	Round4	Round5	Round6	Round7	Round8	Round9	Round10	Total	Avg
Rank	AAAClass	9,10,G	16,5,D	13,6,21	N,L,A,19	E,K,P,3	18,15,14	22,8,17	2,7,M	O,Q,11,20	B,F,J,H,12	Total	Avg
1	Bardagi	15	16	15	18	15	11	12	16	15	22	155	15.5
2	Blue Spirits	13	15	14	16	17	11	12	16	17	18	149	14.9
3	Team Jumpers	8	9	9	10	9	8	9	10	8	13	93	9.3

This surely doesn't mean that nothing is going on in the other countries. Especially Sweden's reigning national champion team, Bardagi, is carefully preparing for the Mondial 2012 in Dubai. As many other teams, Bardagi has scheduled a later and slower start since the World Meet begins at the beginning of December this year. Team speaker Seth Ericson, Center Inside, said that Bardagi will pick up the training pace in summer and fall.

Nevertheless, the Swedish team has already trained in 2012 and launched the world meet season with indoor training at Bodyflight Bedford in March, with Pete Allum coaching. Seth Ericson commented the first 2012 action: "After the initial few minutes of getting back into the game we were happy with the camp and our performance."

Bardagi went back to Bedford two weeks later to run a tunnel camp and added some team training, as well. The team members learned that 15 minutes of team training while coaching tunnel campers is the maximum time for a training/coaching combination for a whole indoor hour of flying time.

World Meet 2010		Rd. 1	Rd. 2	Rd. 3	Rd. 4	Rd. 5	Rd. 6	Rd. 7	Rd. 8	Rd. 9	Rd. 10	Total	Avg
Rank	AAA Class	10,7,12	3,11,5	J,M,Q,P,L	19,1,13	N,18,20	K,17,8	2,15,H	4,D,6	O,E,9,G	22,B,16	Total	Avg
10	Finland Pro Team	17	16	43	14	15	17	17	17	28	-	184	20.4
11	DK Bodyflight Voluntas	17	15	37	16	15	18	16	18	-	-	152	19.0
13	Sweden Bardagi	12	13	35	12	14	12	14	16	-	-	128	16.0
14	Norway X3M4S Elements	14	11	30	14	13	15	13	16	-	-	126	15.8

Bardagi was formed at the end of the 2009 season when Sweden's previous national team, Evolution, discontinued after the World Cup 2009. The new team won the early qualification event for the World Meet 2010 in Menzelinsk in June and has been Sweden's national 4way team ever since.

Sweden then ended up behind Finland (20.4) and Denmark (19.0) in Russia and outscored Norway (15.8) by two points in the Open Class at the team's first World Championship of Formation Skydiving.

Bardagi came back with the same lineup for the 2011 season and attended four meets, one in Florida, two in Sweden and the World Cup 2011 where Bardagi was the only Scandinavian team in the Open Class and outscored Polaris (17.7 - 16.1) quite easily.

This year, Bardagi was in DeLand for an outdoor training camp with coach Shannon Pilcher, which was still scheduled too early for the attendance at the Paraclete XP Outdoor Championship 2012. Bardagi completed 87 training jumps, and the Swedish team was pleased with the results.

Bodyflight Voluntas and Polaris were still the only national teams from Scandinavia after Bedford who have posted any scores this year at this point in time, as Bardagi had also scheduled the next indoor training away from the World Challenge 2012 in April. Seth Ericson reported that his team copied the competition draw of the World Challenge 2012 at this indoor camp.

The 23.6 average would have placed Bardagi within the TOP 10 in Bedford, but that was in training and not with the same World Challenge 2012 judges. Bardagi can at least be happy with the pace - whether the 23.6 average was officially scored or not. The potential for taking the Scandinavian top position in 2012 is obviously there. The first official Bardagi scores will hopefully be posted soon.