posted Sep 28th, 2012 - The Russian Nationals 2012 are over now and attracted seven Open Class teams to Siberia this year.

Sky Panthers Barkli's 4way lineup won quite easily, even though the host had recruited a world class 4way lineup for the competition in Tanay. The team in 2nd place only had a different name though. The same lineup has competed under Gradient Alpha in the past years, including the Russian Nationals 2011.

It was a friendly 4way competition since three members of Fly Tanay are also members of Barkli's 8way lineup. After the completion of the 4way competition Aleksandr Tichinskiy, Sergey Yalpaev and Vladimir Arutunov joined forces with the Barkli 4way members to win the 8way competition with no serious competition in this category.

Russian Nationals 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	20,F,D,16	P,B,18,K	6,21,G	12,M,9	E,17,3	O,Q,H,13	2,10,C	11,J,22	8,1,4	5,L,N,14	Total	Avg
1	Sky Panthers Barkli (RU)	23	29	22	25	24	26	19	19	16	24	227	22.7
2	Fly Tanay (RU)	22	25	21	22	23	26	19	19	17	21	215	21.5
3	U4 (RU)	15	19	16	16	19	19	13	16	15	17	165	16.5
4	a.team 4way (RU)	16	18	16	16	16	19	13	14	13	15	156	15.6
5	Stihi (RU)	15	18	16	15	16	17	12	13	12	13	147	14.7
6	XOteam (RU)	9	13	14	15	12	16	13	10	13	12	127	12.7
7	Fox MO (RU)	6	7	8	6	4	8	7	8	7	2	63	6.3

Sky Panthers Barkli will represent Russia in both events at the World Meet 2012. The team members are facing the same challenging situation in Dubai as France is taking it on. Both nations have one lineup to win medals in 4way and in 8way.

France and Russia both used their national championships to practice competing in both events at the same time, as it will happen in Dubai. It was the only opportunity this year. Neither the Aerodyne Aerokart lineup from France nor Russia's Sky Panthers Barkli FS delegation competed at the World Cup.

The Russian team had planned to attend the 8way competition in Prostejov but canceled the trip to the Czech Republic when no other team signed up.

It will be tough for Russia and France to win gold medals in either event. There is hardly a doubt that both nations will be in contention for the three sets of medals in 4way and 8way. However, the road to gold medals requires France and Russia to get past the 4way experts from Belgium, NMP-PCH Hayabusa, and Arizona Airspeed, of course, while the Golden Knights are focused only on 8way.

The 8way competition in Russia was over after five rounds, and the NSL News will follow up later with the scores. The Barkli 4way lineup has not trained much at all this year since the team's focus is on 8way. Barkli completed 26 jumps in 4way this year after 40 in 2011. It will be very difficult for the Russian 4way team to get anywhere close to the 4way medal contenders from Belgium, France and USA.

The major bulk of training is still coming up for Barkli, with two training camps in DeLand and another one in Eloy.