posted May 14th, 2009 - It was a coincidence, and an interesting one. The NSL News evaluated and commented the Russian team Kaktus Hunter's performance at the World Challenge 2009 with the story on 1 May 2009. One day later, the Aerograd skydiving center in Kolomna hosted a 4-way competition attended by six teams, including Kaktus Hunter.

The story on May 1 did not only cover the indoor competition at Bodyflight Bedford in April. It also provided a short overview of the team situation in Russia, as Kaktus Hunter is moving closer to the top level of 4-way competition there.

The scores from Russia arrived at the NSL office a week later, and most of the team names on the leaderboard have already been there earlier this year, or in 2008. Most interestingly, one of the two top contenders competed in Kolomna, as well, this time with its Skylight Barkli lineup.

The NSL News had already explained earlier that Leonid Kazinez and Michail Kuznetsov take their turns training and competing with Vladimir Pavlenko, Oleg Shalamykhin and Sergej Shenin, depending on their business agenda. The team with Leonid Kazinez is called Skylight Barkli, who is also the alternate for the Sky Panthers with Michail Kuznetsov.

Both lineups deliver world class performances, and Sky Panthers has been the Russian national team for several years. It was Leonid Kazinez' turn on May 1, and Skylight Barkli won the competition with a 19.3 average.

Skylight Barkli with Leonid Kazinez will also compete at the Russian Nationals 2009 and at the World Cup 2009. It was a great opportunity for all teams to check out the situation at the beginning of the season.

It was not really the beginning of the 2009 season for three of the teams though. Kaktus Hunter obviously competed at the World Challenge 2009, and two other Russian teams already attended their second and third outdoor competition this year. Cross Road and Gradient Alpha both competed at the FSL Shamrock Showdown 2009, and Gradient Alpha had opened the team's 2009 season at the Valentine's Meet 2009 in February.

It was an extremely slow competition draw with 21 of the 22 blocks and only 11 of the 16 random formations, and Gradient Alpha (Vladimir Arutyunov, Andrey Kalugin, Valery Kryshevich, Sergey Yalpaev, with Andrey Karin on camera) mastered it impressively well.

Gradient Alpha has increased the meet average at the three 10-round meets this year step by step (13.4 - 14.0 - 15.6) and even the most from the average March to the slow May meet. Gradient Alpha has now caught up with Cross Road after finishing far behind (14.0 - 16.0) at the Shamrock Showdown.

Cross Road (Dmitry Fridman, Valentin Ilin, Nadeshda Sherbinina, Alexander Tychinskiy, with Maxim Tikhomirov on camera) managed to maintain the team's performance and scoring level of the Shamrock Showdown (16.0 - 15.9) despite the slower competition draw.

It is more difficult to define the situation between Skylight Barkli and Kaktus Hunter. Skylight Barkli has not competed at the bigger meets in the past two years, as Vladimir Pavlenko, Oleg Shalamykhin and Sergej Shenin attended these meets with Michail Kuznetsov and the Sky Panthers.

Skylight Barkli and Kaktus Hunter were both competing at the same place and at the same time only once so far, at the World Challenge 2008 in Bedford. Skylight Barkli finished far ahead with a 24.2 average. Kaktus Hunter posted a 22.2 average last year.

Kaktus Hunter was almost at Barkli's 2008 level this year, with the 23.9 average in Bedford. The May meet in Russia was now the first time that both teams competed directly with each other at an outdoor skydiving competition, and Kaktus Hunter finished 17 points behind (19.3 - 17.6) in second place.

This second place was the best position on a Russian leaderboard for Kaktus Hunter in the team's history. However, Skylight Barkli opened the 2009 season with a very solid performance. It will be interesting to see how much closer the challenger will be able to move this year.

There will also be the Black Cat factor in Russia this year.

The world class team has not trained much but will compete at the Russian Nationals in August.

Black Cat would automatically become the Russian top contender, as only the Sky Panthers have been able to beat Black Cat in the past, and the Sky Panthers are off this year. It will be Leonid Kazinez' turn with Skylight Barkli to take on Black Cat this year.