posted Dec 5th, 2008 - The NSL News goes back to the World Meet 2008.

The most relevant event in Formation Skydiving competition has already produced plenty of stories, which can all be found on the three event pages for the three different categories. It is actually an unlimited source for information and thoughts, and the NSL News gives the northern part of Europe special attention this time.

The World Meet 2008 served also as an unofficial Scandinavian Championship, as the national teams of four of the five Scandinavian countries competed in Maubeuge (Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Finland).

Only Iceland was not represented this time, even though Bangsimon had competed at the FSL Shamrock Showdown 2008 and had plans to compete at the World Meet 2008, as well.

The Scandinavian countries used to run a championship of their own once in a while in the history of the sport. These days, three of the four nations (Denmark, Sweden, Finland) are a part of the international NSL/ESL Network, and their teams compete on a regular basis nationally and together with the rest of the world. Norway is currently preparing her participation beginning with the 2009 season.

All four Scandinavian teams that competed at the World Meet 2008 were not new to the NSL News audience since several stories had already covered these teams before they traveled to France in August. The national team from Denmark, Danish Blaze, was the busiest one and has scores of eight different NSL leaderboards posted at the team page.

Danish Blaze was introduced to the NSL News audience in detail on 4 July 2008. Evolution, the Swedish national team that won the qualification in a close race over Blue Spirits, made the NSL News on 29 July 2008. The Tigers from Finland were mentioned in the same article and received additional special attention on 3 August 2008 when the Finish team won the Swedish Nationals 2008.

It was already clear long before the World Meet 2008 that Norway's 4-way team Arcteryx would be the strongest Scandinavian national team in Maubeuge. Arcteryx was competing for medals on the top of the field, while the three other Scandinavian nations would probably be found somewhere in the middle of the leaderboard.

It turned out that Norway did not get close enough the the medals positions and ended up in 5th place, with the highest meet average in Norwegian 4-way history though, as the NSL News story on 17 November 2008 reported. On the other hand, Denmark, Sweden and Finland were so close that it really seemed to be like a Scandinavian championship. Danish Blaze (tied in 12th), Evolution (15th) and Tigers (16th) finished within four ranking positions and a total of eight points.

The last world meet where the same four Scandinavian nations competed together at the same time and the same place was in Turkey 1997. Norway (16.1) finished in 6th place, Sweden (14.8) in 11th, Finland (13.6) placed 14th and Denmark (9.9) ended up in 24th position. At least one of these four Scandinavian countries was missing at the world meets ever since until they all came together again in Maubeuge this year.

The placements were obviously different this time, except Norway still as the leader of the Scandinavian foursome. In fact, Norway has been the highest-ranking Scandinavian 4-way team ever since the World Meet of 1997. Denmark had this slot in 1993 and 1995 when the Danish 4-way team won two consecutive sets of bronze medals.

The World Meet of 1993 in Eloy was actually an impressive Scandinavian show. Denmark won the bronze medals, Finland finished in 4th place and Sweden in 5th place. It was only the worst placement for Norway in 18th position. It was also the only world meet where Scandinavia was represented by all its five nations. Iceland finished not far behind Norway in 21st place and with a 9.3 average, which still stands for Iceland's record average at a world meet.

This year's competition between Denmark, Sweden and Finland would have been even closer without a very unfortunate ending for the Tigers. A point deduction and a confusing brainlock after almost two pages reduced the Finish score for the last round to a 9-pointer, while Denmark and Sweden both posted 16-pointers. The Tigers would have been ahead of Evolution and very close to Danish Blaze without the mishap.

However, it was an exciting Scandinavian competition within the official world meet, and the Danish 4-way team eventually brought the 2008 season to a happy end with a new 15.8 team record average after a lot of hard work in the past two years.

The Tigers will hopefully recover well from the unfortunate finish and move on next year.

Finland's Tigers and Sweden's Evolution are facing tough competition at home where the Pro Team has been challenging the Tigers for a while, while Blue Spirits plans to win the Swedish Nationals 2009 and qualify for the World Meet in 2010.

The Norwegian and Danish national lineups are results of coordinated national selection projects.