posted Jun 22nd, 2012 - One of the upcoming weekend's meets is the annual Battle at Midway, which was inaugurated in 2009. Only three 4way teams attended the competition at Skydive Chicago last year, after a 5-team participation in 2010. Five teams made it to Ottawa this weekend, and one of them is coming from far away.

Dubai head coach Craig Girard brought one of the two Dubai Asaar lineups to the USA, first for an indoor training camp at Paraclete XP last week, followed by outdoor training in Ottawa, to prepare for the competition at the Midway Battle.

He has three members of the Asaar Red team in this weekend's lineup. Abdulla Abdulla (Center Inside), Obaid Alfalasi (Tail) and Aziz Shukari (Point) will compete for Dubai at the World Meet 2012 on their home turf. The 4th Red member, Khaled Alneyadi (Center Outside), was not available for the trip to the USA, and Asaar Gold member Khalid Abduljalil is filling in for him.

Khalid Abduljalil flies the Point slot for his own team, and coach Craig Girard decided with the three Red members to keep him in his familiar position. Red Point Aziz Shukari has moved to the Center Outside slot for the whole trip and uses the opportunity for a lot of cross training. Yuan Mayer is filming the team at the Midway Battle.

Skydive Chicago is SDC Rhythm XP's home turf in the summer season, and the home team is competing at the Midway Battle, of course, together with the other Chicago home team, SDC Furies XP. Two more teams have signed up for the competition.

Craig Girard and Eliana Rodriguez are trying to give their Dubai teams enough competition experience before the big meets are coming up. They know how important this part of 4way competition is after training and competing over many years with the best teams in the world. The Midway Battle is already the third competition this year for Dubai Asaar Red.

Paraclete XP Outdoor 2012		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	Q,8,H,22	16,19,13	10,14,2	E,C,20,K	5,M,9	A,6,F,17	D,21,N,B	P,O,G,J,1	18,4,7	12,15,3	Total	Avg
4	SDC Rhythm XP (US)	21	17	15	28	29	23	27	27	19	18	224	22.4
12	Dubai Asaar Red (AE)	10	11	7	13	15	15	16	15	13	9	124	12.4
13	Dubai Asaar Gold (AE)	11	11	7	15	15	16	14	12	12	10	123	12.3

SDC Rhythm XP has been even busier, as this weekend's competition is the team's 4th meet of the 2012 season. However, Rhythm faces a challenging situation at the team's 2nd outdoor competition after the Paraclete XP Outdoor Championship 2012.

The US top team was training this week to get ready for the upcoming competition when Chris Farina injured his knee during an exit of Block 10 (Diamond - Bunyip). He was unable to continue with the training, and Rhythm's participation at the Midway Battle was in question.

That's when Craig Girard stepped in and offered to fill the slot. He is now competing in Chris Farina's Center Inside slot for the ten rounds, while he is guiding Dubai Asaar Red through the meet at the same time. Craig Girard was the Center Outside for Arizona Airspeed, and it will be an exciting experience for him to be the engine for a world class team in a different slot. The first scores will be posted soon.