posted Jun 17th, 2005 - The NSL News story on June 12 began with the coverage of the 4-way Female event at the Malevsky Memorial Cup 2005. French national coach Jerome David had provided the NSL News with an update on the national teams of France.

The NSL News story included the success story of the French team in the 4-way Female event. The Malevsky Cup 2005 will separate the 4-way events this year and have different rankings for the 4-way Open and the 4-way Female teams. The 8-way event completes the Formation Skydiving competition in Russia.

The French national 4-way team seems to be the favorite team for the gold medals in the Female event at the Malevsky Cup 2005. The Russian Ladybirds had an impressive showing at last year's world meet in Croatia and won the bronze medals surprisingly over the Italian team Kewara. However, the distance to the French team was significant in Croatia (16.4 France - 15.3 Russia), and it will be interesting to see if the Ladybirds have been able to get closer to France between September 2004 and July 2005.

The Ladybirds were formed last year by Larisa Sverdlenko who competed with Spirit of Russia, the Russian female national team of 2000 and 2001. Spirit of Russia won the bronze medal at the IPC World Cup 2000 at Skydive Arizona in Eloy with a 10.6 meet average. Sverdlenko was also a member of the Russian Women's national team at the IPC World Meet and World Air Games 2001 in Spain. Russia finished in fifth place with an 11.5 meet average. Former Wild Wind and current 8-way member Elena Tchistova was competing together with Sverdlenko in the same team by then.

The Ladybirds competed at the Malevsky Cup 2003 and finished with a 10.6 average. However, Russia did not register a female team for the Mondial 2003. The Ladybirds changed the line-up for the 2004 season, competed at the Malevsky Cup 2004 as a guest team and finished with a 12.1 average. Three months later in Croatia, the Russian average was up to 15.3 and caught Italy's Kewara by surprise. Round ten of the Russian Ladybirds in Croatia can still be viewed on NSL-TV. It was the only round of the competition where the Ladybirds outscored the French team (18 - 17).

The progression of the Ladybirds between 2003 and 2004 was impressive. The question is whether round ten in Croatia was the successful beginning of the challenge to catch up with France or a unique highlight. The Malevsky Cup 2005 next month will answer this question.

The field of female 4-way teams in Russia next month also includes the German national team of the 4-way Female event, Chicas, the Ukrainian team Alfa Fox, Infinity from the Netherlands and the national team from Finland, Zooey. The Finish team is also the reigning champion of the Scandinavian country in the Open Class after winning the national championship in 2004. The NSL News had reported this unique event in the history of Formation Skydiving with the NSL News story on July 29, 2004.

Neither Germany, nor the Dutch team, Finland's Zooey or Alfa Fox will be able to seriously challenge France or Russia at the Malevsky Cup 2005. The competition for the third place will most likely happen between Germany and Finland, while the young team Alfa Fox from Ukraine continues to collect competition experience and works on the goal to reduce the distance to the other teams.