posted Jan 29th, 2009 - The NSL News recently covered the visit of the French national 4-way teams, France Maubeuge and Deep Blue, for a winter training camp in DeLand. Both teams accepted invitations for NSL News interviews, and the videos were posted with the stories on 15 January 2009 and 16 January 2009.

The story that covered Deep Blue mentioned that national 4-way coach Marin Ferré would also visit the NSL office and discuss the training camp and other topics with the NSL News. He worked with both teams in DeLand, which completed 130 training jumps in the 2-week camp.

Marin Ferré took the time for the interview at the end of the last training day in DeLand. He said that the camp was very successful and provided a summary of the French teams' winter training. He will come back with the same two teams for a spring camp in March and the FSL Shamrock Showdown 2009.

The former French 4-way world champion chatted about his own competition career and other topics with the NSL News before the interview turned to the national teams that he has been coaching since they were selected.

Marin Ferré was a member of the French national 4-way team that battled intensively over years with the US teams, first with the legendary Airspeed lineup (Jack Jefferies, Dan BC, Mark Kirkby, Kirk Verner), then with Airspeed Vertical (Craig Girard, Neal Houston, John Eagle, Mark Kirkby), with the Golden Knights (John Hoover, Eric Heinscheimer, Chris Talbert, Kurt Isenburger), and finally with DeLand Majik (Solly Williams, Gary Smith, Joey Jones, Doug Park).

He competed at the World Cup 1998 in Portugal with his first French lineup, which included his brother Martial Ferré and his current boss, France's manager of the Formation Skydiving delegation, Jérôme David. Thierry Boitieux completed the lineup, which won the silver medals with a 21.8 average. Fred "Toshiba" Leroux was already packing the parachutes for the French team by then, he is still doing it now.

Airspeed was not in Portugal for the World Cup, Space Center FX won the gold medals, two points ahead of France. Airspeed then won the USPA Nationals 1998 four weeks later and became the US national team for the World Meet 1999 in Australia.

Jérôme David retired at the end of the 1998 season and became the French national coach. Davide Moy took his slot, and the new French lineup (Marin and Martial Ferré, Thierry Boitieux, Davide Moy) began with the preparations for the next world meet. France with Marin Ferré won the gold medals in Australia and beat Airspeed by six points with a 20.8 average.

The battle continued a year later at the World Cup 2000 in Eloy. The new Airspeed Vertical lineup won by four points. France had a new lineup, as well. Marin Ferré was now competing with Davide Moy, Julien Le Santos and Erwan Pouliquen who is currently the 8-way world champion player coach.

Both teams competed with exactly the same lineups a year later at the World Meet 2001 in Spain, and the outcome was the same, only on a higher scoring level and closer. Airspeed won by two points with a 21.4 average.

Marin Ferré was still competing with the same lineup, and the scores were even higher at the World Cup 2002. However, France Maubeuge's 22.1 average was only good enough for the 3rd place in Spain this time. Airspeed Vertical and DeLand Majik were both slightly ahead (224 - 222 - 221) of the French team.

The same French lineup turned things around dramatically on their home turf at the World Meet 2003 in Gap. France Maubeuge won the gold medals by 15 points over the Golden Knights and with a 22.9 average.

Marin Ferré was still not done yet and continued for another year with the same lineup. DeLand Majik was the US opponent at the World Meet 2004 in Croatia and took the 4-way sword back to the USA. France Maubeuge scored lower than in 2003 (21.9) and ended up far behind DeLand Majik and the winning 22.7 average.

It was the last competition for Marin Ferré in the French national team, and he retired when his team's 22.9 average of 2003 was still the highest one in history.

The soft spoken former French world champion and current national coach did not point out all of these milestones of a very impressive 4-way career during the interview. It all seems to be just a normal part of his life. It became easier to understand his casual perspective when the conversation turned to his personal life. His whole French family, including parents and siblings, have been in the sport and still are.

His brother Martial was obviously in the same 4-way lineup with him that won the 4-way gold medals in 1999. Martial Ferré is now coming back with the new French 8-way lineup and aims at an 8-way gold medal in 2010. Marin tried to win 8-way gold already in 2003 when the French 4-way lineup competed in both events.

There are even more current skydiving relationships in the Ferré family.

Marin's and Martial's skydiving sister is married to Damien Sorlin who won 8-way gold medals with France in 2006. Damien Sorlin took a 2-year break and now comes back with the new French 8-way lineup.

The video of the whole interview with 4-way coach Marin Ferré can be viewed by clicking here.

The NSL News forgot to ask for up-to-date French video footage at the end of the training camp.

However, there is another video of the France Maubeuge lineup that was filmed on the day after the end of the training camp and before the national team traveled back to France.

NSL-TV caught Mathieu and Guillaume Bernier, Julien Degen, Jeremie Rollet, videographer Fabrice Rieu and packer Laurent "Toshiba" Pechberty on camera in the middle of a recreational actitivity. This interesting video can be viewed by clicking here.