posted Jan 18th, 2014 - It's all done and dusted, Pete Allum said yesterday after six rounds at the Wind Games 2014, and it now counts just as much after the completion of ten rounds in Empuriabrava, Spain. NMP-PCH Hayabusa increased the lead from four to nine points and cashed in the 8,000 Euro for the 1st place with the highest meet average in history for a 10-round meet with the complete dive pool. It's time for the aftermath.

Martial Ferre, who competed with the international EXL3Maubeuge lineup at the Wind Games, put together the Veloce video that features the showdown between Arizona Airspeed and NMP-PCH Hayabusa. The audience has the unique opportunity to compare both teams directly. Pete Allum had a short summary of the second meet day looking at the top of the leaderboard:

"Hayabusa walked away with a massive €8,000 check as the winners of the first Wind Games. Airspeed, winning €5,000, battled bravely to the last second with interesting engineering from the Q to the 2 giving them a swing move and some good energy into the block. But it was not enough. Despite a few hiccups Hayabusa triumphed and are the victors of this first match up of the season."

Wind Games 2014		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	C,20,17	16,A,D,7	J,P,13,L	N,21,22	M,8,15	K,3,6	F,4,1	B,G,H,O,10	5,18,9	Q,2,12	Total	Avg
1	NMP-PCH Hayabusa	29(-1)	36(-1)	33	27	31	30(-1)	29	41	32(-1)	26	314(-4)	31.4
2	Arizona Airspeed	32	35	30(-4)	27	32	26(-2)	32	38(-1)	32(-1)	21(-4)	305(-12)	30.5

Roy Janssen, NMP-PCH Hayabusa's tail, had Belgian feeback for the Sun Path Products NSL News just half a day after the completion of Round 10. Comments from Arizona Airspeed will hopefully follow very soon, as well.

The original Hayabusa member said that his team was happy winning the Wind Games and competing against Arizona Airspeed. The Mondial Dubai 2012 was the last time that Hayabusa had faced the reigning world champions:

"We were not sure how much they had improved since that time. Surely we knew that they would be already strong, but we didn't have recent scores from Airspeed to measure ourselves with. So it was really good to see where we are standing compared to them."

Wind Games 2014		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	C,20,17	16,A,D,7	J,P,13,L	N,21,22	M,8,15	K,3,6	F,4,1	B,G,H,O,10	5,18,9	Q,2,12	Total	Avg
1	NMP-PCH Hayabusa	29(-1)	36(-1)	33	27	31	30(-1)	29	41	32(-1)	26	314(-4)	31.4
2	Arizona Airspeed	32	35	30(-4)	27	32	26(-2)	32	38(-1)	32(-1)	21(-4)	305(-12)	30.5

Roy Janssen said that this was the start of the 2014 season for his team. Hayabusa had a 4-week break for the Christmas holidays after the 4th Dubai International Parachuting Championship 2013 in December and met again just two days before the Wind Games:

"The most difficult thing for us was to get back out of the holiday mode and prepare for a hard battle. So our first round was not good, and this was more a lack of mental preparation for peaking at this meet. It put us directly into the situation of chasing Airspeed."

However, Hayabusa is experienced enough now to deal with such a situation and recovered quickly: "We found back our competition rhythm and did some really good rounds."

Top competitors always find room for improvements after detecting mistakes, and so did NMP-PCH Hayabusa, as Roy Janssen explained openly: "We had too many little mistakes that you don't want to have during the World Championship."

The overall Hayabusa feelings were still good, Roy Janssen said, despite bad performances in Round 1 and Round 7. He said that it felt good to be fully challenged again after a year without much serious direct competition at the meets: "After not having to fight for each single point for a while during previous meets, you almost forget the true competition feeling. Well, for sure having Airspeed here brought back that feeling!"

He thinks that it is good for both teams to have those battles early in the season: "With Paraclete XP Indoor and Outdoor Championships coming up, things will only become more exciting!"

Roy Janssen said that Hayabusa is also happy with the actual scores. The Wind Games took place in a 14-foot flying chamber, and the 31.4 average beats the highest Hayabusa 10-round average (30.7) in Bodyflight Bedford's 16-foot chamber: "We are happy and proud of this score, and we hope to do even better during the World Challenge 2014, which is is our major indoor event. We usually prepare really well to peak in Bedford."

He said that his team will not be as well prepared for the Paraclete XP Indoor and Outdoor Championships: "Our preparations will not be ideal, nevertheless we will give our very best."

He finished his summary with compliments for Arizona Airspeed and the team's high performance level with the new lineup: "Big thanks for coming over to Europe to compete against us!"