posted Apr 4th, 2009 - The competition draw is posted, and Bodyflight Bedford turned instantly into a dirtdive arena after the CamScore copies were handed out to the teams. Once again, the NSL Reality TV camera went on a tour and captured scenes of the preparations for the ten sequences.

An important issue came up on this tour. The NSL News found Bodyflight Storm members Hannah Betts and Claire "Sparky" Scott, who compete with Tarnya Hollis and Amanda Kemp under the team name Pussy Galore this weekend.

The NSL News asked the two 4-way world champions of 2008 in the female 4-way category when the Fun Flag would be flying in Bedford. It was a challenging question, as they did not know exactly where the flag was located at the moment. They got instantly on the phone to find out more. Hopefully, the NSL News will be able to follow up with good news and a photo that shows the Fun Flag flying high...

NSL News brings Reality TV from Bedford to the audience

The opening briefing is already history, and the official training session for the registered teams is in full swing. CamScore's Andy Mansfield and Jo Bell work together with the judges on the final preparations for the first round. One more AAA Class team registered at the last minute, which makes it a total of 47 teams for the World Challenge 2009.

The NSL-TV camera captured live scenes of the opening briefing, which come across like reality TV from Bedford. It will hopefully provide some impressions of the lively atmosphere at Bodyflight Bedford. Teams, competitors, judges and staff are in great spirits in the final runup to the competition.

Several teams focused on more exit training at mockups, while the opening briefing and the time afterwards was also a social event for many participants from all over the planet. Kayla and Justin Tinucci had other things in mind. They entertained themselves by exploring special parts of the facility while waiting for their coaches.

The NSL-TV camera then moved on to the action area where teams lineup for their training sessions and then into the tunnel chamber.

Vertigo the Zoo, one of the four teams from Italy, was in the flying chamber, and one team member caught the NSL-TV attention instantly.

Former Sinapsi PD member Arianna de Benedetti is flying her Center Outside slot for this lineup, and she looked just as sharp as if she had never interrupted her 4-way training. She has been freeflying and focusing on her career as an artist ever since she left Sinapsi.

Her former teammate Marco Arrigo was not far by coincidence. The 8-way bronze medalist of 2008 with the Italian 8-way team Ex3mo is guiding another Italian team, 3MD, through the competition in Bedford. Arianna de Benedetti and Marco Arrigo trained and competed together with Sinapsi PD for and at the World Meets of 2003 and 2004.

Another reunion happens on the Norwegian side of the field. Former DeLand Norgies bronze medalists of 1999, 2001 and 2003, Lise Nansen-Aune and Paul Kolbenstvedt compete with the international lineup of Area 51. Igor Galvan from Italy and Alex Jordaan from South Africa complete this lineup.

The training sessions are coming to the final stage, and the competition draw will be posted at 11:00 am. Round 4 will have a nice surprise for the fans of fast random sequences. The first scores will probably be posted around 1:00 pm, stay tuned.

French national coaches prefer slower speed judging

The day has come, it is Saturday morning in Bedford, and the World Challenge 2009 will get on its way in a few hours with Round 1.

The official opening of the event is scheduled for 8:00 am when the teams will meet with Paul Meyer, his staff and the judges for a briefing. The official training sessions will begin sonn afterwards, and the competition draw will be handed out at 11:00 am.

The NSL News has now uploaded the video of a very interesting live interview with the three coaches of the French Formation Skydiving competition system. Jerome David is in charge of the management for the whole FS business, Marin Ferre is the technical 4-way coach, and Erwan Pouliquen is responsible for the 8-way team. Each of the three coaches is a former 4-way world champion, and they also trained and competed together at some point in time.

The coaches introduced their five lineups that will compete this weekend in Bedford: France Maubeuge, Aerokart Deep Blue, Aerokart Pamiers, Veloce and Oxygene. Several reigning and former 4-way and 8-way world champions are members of these lineups, and the NSL News offered some of the details already in earlier stories.

After introducing the teams in Bedford the conversation turned to the trip of the two national teams, France Maubeuge and Aerokart Deep Blue, to the FSL Shamrock Showdown 2009. The 70% judging speed in DeLand became the topic, and the French coaches explained their own view of the current judging situation.

They all agreed that it is time to review the rules and to find a better system than the one that is currently used at the FAI/IPC competitions. Jerome David, currently Advisor to IPC's Formation Skydiving Committee, said that scoring and judging have almost been near to gambling for a while.

He added that the teams have picked up the pace to a level where it is difficult to make an accurate judging call with full speed viewings only. Several top coaches and many world class competitors have brought up the same experiences already quite a few times.

The video of the interview can be viewed by clicking here.