posted Jan 11th, 2014 - The Sun Path Products NSL News story on 7 January 2014 brought back the inaugural Shamrock Showdown in 2002, which has now turned into the Paraclete XP Outdoor Championship with the Shamrock Showdown Skins Game.

The story featured DeLand Majik and Arizona Airspeed Vertical and their competition videos of the event. There were several other internal battles at different parts of the leaderboard, and NSL-TV found videos of UK team XL and Italy's national 4way team Sinapsi in the archives.

Airspeed Vertical was the reigning 4way world champion in 2002, DeLand Majik would win gold medals in Croatia 2004, and Sinapsi won bronze medals in Germany 2006. XL battled for bronze medals with the DeLand Norgies for many years and eventually ended up empty handed.

Shamrock Showdown		Rd. 1	Rd. 2	Rd. 3	Rd. 4	Rd. 5	Rd. 6	Rd. 7	Rd. 8	Rd. 9	Rd. 10	Total	Av.
Rank	AAAClassTeams	12-H-2	J-L-G-D-P	6-Q-C-B	K-N-7-16	F-A-14-M	5-13-15	18-3-10	9-19-18	17-4-22	11-O-21	Total	Av.
1	DeLand Majik	19	34	31	23 (-2)	22	20	17	21	18	21	226	22.6
2	Airspeed Vertical	19	34	28	24	23	19	17	19 (-2)	19	21	223	22.3
3	Sebastian XL	17	27	22	20	23	16	14 (-1)	17	17	18	191	19.1
4	Italy Sinapsi	14	27	18 (-2)	21	21	14	14	17	15 (-2)	17	178	17.8
5	Punky Fish	14	24	21	16	17	13	11	14	13	13	156	15.6
6	Sweden Phenix	14	19 (-2)	19	17	17	11	13	6 (-6)	14	14	144	14.4
7	Blue Eye Majik	11	23	14 (-4)	19	14 (-4)	10	11	14	12	14	142	14.2
8	SpaceCenterTeiwaz	12	18	18	12	10 (-5)	13	11	14	9 (-2)	15	132	13.2
9	Jet Stream	11	15	15	13	13	10	11	12	11	11	122	12.2
10	SuperFly	11	15	12 (-1)	11	10 (-2)	9	10	11	7 (-2)	11	107	10.7
11	TBD	5	14	9 (-2)	9	12	8	4	10	9	8	88	8.8

That was not the case for two XL members of 2002/2003 though. Thomas Hughes won a 4way gold medal in Dubai 2012 after joining Arizona Airspeed and now tries to defend the world champion title. Pete Allum competed for Sinapsi at the world meet in Germany 2006 and won a bronze medal.

The new videos of the 2002 event are showing Thomas Hughes and Pete Allum with XL, while Marco Arrigo is still with Sinapsi PD. XL outscored Sinapsi by 13 points in March 2002. However, the Italian national team had reduced the distance to two points a year later in Gap, France.

The DeLand Norgies won the bronze medals in 2003 by one single point, and it was the closest battle between Norgies and XL. However, it was actually a 3-team battle for the bronze medals, as Sinapsi was only two points behind both teams after Round 9.

World Meet 2003		Rd. 1	Rd. 2	Rd. 3	Rd. 4	Rd. 5	Rd. 6	Rd. 7	Rd. 8	Rd. 9	Rd. 10	Total	Avg
Rank	4way Open Class	1-11-12	M-J-E-10	K-16-6	13-14-5	D-22-4	9-C-Q-N	F-19-21	2-20-L	18-B-3	8-P-7	Total	Avg
1	Maubeuge (FR)	16	26	23	19	21	37	24	21	19	23	229	22.9
2	Golden Knights (US)	17	24	22	19	18	35	22	18	19	20	214	21.4
3	DeLand Norgies (NO)	13	24	21	19	18	36	19	16	19	(21)	(185)	20.6
4	XL (UK)	14	22	21	19	17	34	21	18	19	(20)	(185)	20.5
5	Sinapsi PD (IT)	13	24	22	17	17	32	22	18	18	-	183	20.3

DeLand Norgies and XL were done after the world meet in Gap 2003, the Norgies with three sets of bronze medals and XL without a medal position. Sinapsi continued with the same lineup and missed the bronze medals by one single point a year later in Croatia. Russia's Sky Panthers placed 3rd.

That's when Pete Allum took Marco Arrigo's slot and competed for Italy. He was eligible for the world meet in Germany 2006 after sitting out in Croatia 2004.

Sinapsi with Pete Allum turned around the outcome of Croatia 2004 and outscored the Sky Panthers by one single point for the bronze medals in the 5-round meet. Sinapsi was actually also only one point behind France in the silver medal position. XL member Steve Hamilton later joined Sinapsi, as well, and all XL members still celebrate annual reunions with different lineups at the World Challenge.