posted Oct 1st, 2012 - The NSL News story on 28 September 2012 covered the 4way competition at the Russian Nationals 2012, and it was mostly about the two teams on the top of the leaderboard, Sky Panthers Barkli and Fly Tanay.

The story explained that seven members of the same two 4way teams also combine for the Sky Panthers Barkli's 8way lineup. Leonid Kazinets is the 8th member of the Russian 8way team.

The other teams on the Russian leaderboard still had their own stories too, and Russia's national coach Egor Gusev provided additional information.

He said that the host of the national championships and owner of the skydiving center in Tanay is Andrew Barabash.

He was a passionate 4way competitor himself and a member of the Russian national 4way team who competed at the World Meet 2003 in Gap, France. Wild Wind Kuzbass consisted of Andrew Barabash, Alena Chistova, Sergey Yalpaev and Nikolay Vylegzhanin. It was the first world class 4way team from Russia.

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

Alena Chistova continued with the Russian 8way team Evolution Pro and won 8way bronze medals at the World Meet 2004 in Croatia and 2006 in Germany. Then she also won 4way silver medals for Russia with the Illusions at the World Cup 2011 in Germany.

Wild Wind members Sergey Yalpaev and Nikolay Vylegzhanin are now both in Sky Panthers Barkli's 8way lineup and competed against each other in 4way last week.

Nikolay Vylegzhanin won with Barkli's 4way lineup, and Sergey Yalpaev placed 2nd with Fly Tanay, formerly known as Gradient Alpha. Andrew Barabash was the event host.

There are more cross connections between the other teams on the Russian leaderboard at this year's national championships.

The U4 lineup included another member of the Illusions. Alena Chistova competed at the World Cup 2011 together with Maria Serova who now had Svetlana Bubnova, Alex Odinokov and Danil Boroveev with her in the U4 lineup.

Svetlana Bubnova had also competed for the Illusions at the 3rd Dubai Cup in December 2011 where she replaced Katya Kharitonova for this meet. U4 member Alex Odinokov has competed with Rainbow and Vertical in the past years.

Katya Kharitonova, former Kaktus Hunter and then Illusions member, has a new team and placed 4th with the a.team lineup. Two of her team mates (Alex Ashihmin and Alex Ushakov) are very new to 4way competition and attended their first national championships.

Andrew Kalugin is the other player coach in this new lineup. He was a Gradient Alpha member at the World Cup 2011 in Germany.