posted Apr 15th, 2014 - The Sun Path Products NSL News has followed the Dutch 4way team Cool Runnings for a long time - from the first meets in the Rookie Class to the national championships of the Netherlands in the AAA Class.

The team dream story continues, as Cool Runnings will compete for the Netherlands at this year's World Championship of Formation Skydiving. The update on 22 December 2013 broke the news that Cool Runnings became the Dutch national 4way team when NRG and Whooops decided to retire from 4way competition after placing ahead of Cool Runnings at the national championships last year.

The story on 6 January 2014 followed up with the history of the previous national team, Whooops, and Cool Runnings, who have a lot in common. The new Dutch national team was recently in DeLand for a spring training camp and met with the Sun Path Products NSL News at the end of a training day.

Dutch Nationals 2013		Rd. 1	Rd. 2	Rd. 3	Rd. 4	Rd. 5	Rd. 6	Rd. 7	Rd. 8	Rd. 9	Rd. 10	Rd. 11	Total	Avg
Rank	AAA Class	18,L,N,Q	19,5,F	M,20,21	K,J,10,22	E,9,7	1,O,14	B,4,17	P,11,C,2	8,H,16	3,G,6	12,13,15	Total	Avg
1	NRG	16	13	16	15	20	14	16	15	15	14	10	164	14.9
2	Whooops	16	14	15	15	20	14	16	16	14	14	10	164	14.9
3	Cool Runnings	12	12	13	11	15	9	10	12	9	10	-	113	11.3

Cool Runnings began as a role model for a recreational 4way team that was out to have fun and compete at the same time. There were no real ambitions to become very competitive, even though the team members said that some of them were somehow dreaming of attending a world championship one day.

Three of the team members (Joost van Heijenoort, Sjoerd van Son, Tom van der Valk) and videographer Jeroen van Dijk trained and competed with the original Cool Runnings lineup of 2006. Rene Hoogland joined the team in 2009 and took Mike Lake's tail slot.

The current lineup still includes the missing original team member. They said that Mike Lake will be the team captain for the Dutch delegation in the Czech Republic this year. Cool Runnings will be the only team at the world meet with a complete original lineup of 2006.

Mondial Dubai 2012		Rd. 1	Rd. 2	Rd. 3	Rd. 4	Rd. 5	Rd. 6	Rd. 7	Rd. 8	Rd. 9	Rd. 10	Total	Avg
Rank	AAA Class	5,12,E	6,D,B,K	O,8,7	N,13,18	10,21,M	19,H,11	C,G,1,A	20,9,15	16,F,P,Q	2,J,4	Total	Avg
23	Magic 4 (LT)	14	17	15	11	14	14	14	13	-	-	112	14.0
24	Whooops (NL)	10	18	17	10	13	14	16	11	-	-	109	13.6
25	Singapore (SG)	14	21	16	12	13	9	14	9	-	-	108	13.5

Cool Runnings is also more competitive than ever before. The trip to the World Championship of Formation Skydiving inspired the team to set some realistic goals. The Sun Path Products NSL News reported last year that Cool Runnings was aiming at the 10-average level at the end of the first AAA Class season.

The 2013 goal was accomplished with the 11.3 average at the national championships. Cool Runnings has now set the goal in a different way. The team is targeting the 13.6 average that Whooops posted at the Mondial Dubai 2012.

Cool Runnings went from 9.3 to 11.3 last year. The same progression would bring the Dutch team almost to the Whooops level. Whooops finished in the middle of the field in Dubai (24th of 38 teams), and Cool Runnings plans to end up in the same area on this year's leaderboard. Whooops fully supports the Cool Runnings goal...