posted Aug 1st, 2014 - France is holding the national championships this weekend, and the teams completed the first six rounds on Friday.

It was to be expected that the national teams in 4-way Open, 4-way Women and 8-way would not attend the competition. The FAI World Championship of Formation Skydiving 2014 is just around the corner, and national coach Jeremie Rollett did not ask his teams to compete in Vichy this weekend.

In fact, the national teams usually don't attend the championships, where they cannot win medals according to the rules of the French federation. However, the French B-Team, Artemis Saumur Flyzone, does not compete in Prostejov and is far ahead at the national championships after Round 6. The Sun Path Products NSL News had introduced the team on 18 July 2014.

French Nationals 2014		Round 1	Round 2	Round 3	Round 4	Round 5	Round 6	Total	Avg
Rank	AAA/Open Class	E,13,K,L	15,11,M	Q,1,20	6,14,F	8,7,B	10,G,12	Total	Avg
1	Artemis Saumur Flyzone	21	16	17	18	18	14	104	17.3
2	Ookpik Pamiers	16	14	11	14	16	12	83	13.8
3	Smooteam PCP Maubeuge	15	13	13	13	11	14	79	13.2
3	Armee Air Nice	17	13	11	13	14	11	79	13.2
5	Monaco Vitalsea (MC)	13	10	14	13	15	13	78	13.0
6	Annecy Artupox Nolimit	12	12	13	11	15	11	74	12.3
7	Invidia Maubeuge	12	12	9	11	13	8	65	10.8
8	Fasten Seatbelts Maubeuge	10	11	9	11	12	9	62	10.3
9	Kindair Le Blanc	8	11	6	10	11	9	55	9.2
10	The Flying Hobbits	10	5	8	8	9	9	49	8.2
11	Annecy D Air	5	10	8	10	8	7	48	8.0
12	Les Sombr Heros EDCL78 PCP	9	8	7	8	8	6	46	7.7
13	Just Leblanc Nantes	6	6	6	7	6	3	34	5.7
14	5kro Stflorentin Parisjump	4	6	6	6	7	4	33	5.5

There is no serious competition for the 1st place, and national coach Jeremie Rollett is probably happy to see how well his young B-Team is performing.

However, there is a horse race of the French amateur teams behind the leader for the medals.

As usual, Monaco Vitalsea and the French Air Force team from Nice are battling it out once again, and it is a 1-point race after Round 6.

There are two more teams involved this time, after only Smooteam PCP Maubeuge, with coach Erwan Pouliquen, had interfered at the Monaco Vitalsea/Armee de l'Air battle in July.

Ookpik Pamiers has also caught up with the best French amateur teams and is in 2nd place at the moment.

The team from Pamiers is also a military lineup and represents the French Army's ground forces (Armee de Terre). The move to the top this weekend came probably surprising for the other amateur top contenders, as Ookpik Pamiers finished with a 9.0 average at the 2-round Coupe de France meet in July.

Coach and alternate Emmanuel "Manu" Sarrazin helped the team to a significantly higher scoring level in the meantime. It's an interesting coaching situation at the national championships where the two former multiple 8-way world champions are pushing their 4-way teams to the top spot behind the national B-Team.

Monaco Vitalsea and Armee de l'Air are making their own way through the competition and are now facing the situation of a 4-team battle for the top spots where they are trailing by a few points. Four more rounds are scheduled for Saturday.