posted Aug 29th, 2014 - The competition at the FAI World Championship of Formation Skydiving 2014 is still offering exciting battles, even though NMP-PCH Hayabusa will not give away their first 4-way gold medals for Belgium and most of the other medal positions have been secured at this point in time.

Canada's Lemay family team with Katie Woods left Hayabusa and Arizona Airspeed in the dust in Round 8 with a perfect performance, including the special and so far unique Canadian Block 15 (Cat - Cat) technique. Hayabusa was even happy enough finishing three points behind Evolution in this round.

The two Belgian brothers, with Roy Janssen and Dennis Praet, had the opportunity of a re-jump due to a cloudy top page. However, they decided to let the Canadians have the highscore for the round, as they see only Arizona Airspeed as the most serious competitor. It would have been very difficult to beat Canada's 21-pointer, and Evolution became the only team that has outscored Hayabusa in a single round.

World Meet 2014		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	E,3,C,5	F,6,D,21	19,H,2	M,4,1	O,14,A,P	8,J,16	7,11,12	22,20,15	17,G,18	13,B,9	Total	Avg
1	NMP-PCH Hayabusa (BE)	32	29	25	25	33	25	22	18	-	-	209	26.1
2	Arizona Airspeed (US)	31	27	25	24	31	23	22	17	-	-	200	25.0
3	Evolution (CA)	31	28	24	22	28	23	20	21	-	-	197	24.6
4	VoltR (FR)	24	26	18	23	26	20	20	13	-	-	170	21.3
4	Barkli (RU)	24	23	20	22	25	21	19	16	-	-	170	21.3
6	Paratec-Saar (DE)	19	23	18	14	22	16	15	13	-	-	140	17.5
7	Dubai Asaar Black (AE)	18	20	17	17	20	14	15	13	-	-	134	16.8
8	Vision 99 (UK)	18	20	16	16	19	15	15	13	-	-	132	16.5
9	Rotor Out (AU)	17	19	17	17	21	14	13	12	-	-	130	16.3
10	Ex3mo 4 (IT)	18	17	16	15	17	15	14	11	-	-	123	15.4

Evolution still has a chance to catch up with Arizona Airspeed if the young Canadians can continue on the incredible performance level of Round 8. However, it is unlikely that Airspeed will allow this to happen. A bronze medal is something unthinkable for the reigning world champions.

There is also a very serious battle for the silver medals in the 8-way competition between France and Russia. Both 8-way powerhouses have swapped their positions on the 8-way leaderboard almost every round until they ended up tied after Round 7. This race is wide open, while Netherlands, Great Britain and Australia are also fighting for the 4th place.

The Sun Path Products NSL News continues with the presentation of the world meet rookies, and the seven new French 8-way competitors are not the only participants who are impressing opponents and audience with great performances at the first showing.

World Meet 2004		Rd. 1	Rd. 2	Rd. 3	Rd. 4	Rd. 5	Rd. 6	Rd. 7	Rd. 8	Rd. 9	Rd. 10	Total	Avg
Rank	4-way Open Class	B-P-C-18	9-15-16	K-11-19	E-F-7-5	A-J-21-12	6-4-10	17-Q-L-1	H-14-3	13-22-O	N-M-D-2	Total	Avg
1	DeLand Majik (US)	29	23	17	30	18	19	27	21	19	24	227	22.7
2	Maubeuge (FR)	28	22	18	30	17	19	23	20	18	24	219	21.9
3	SkyPanthers (RU)	24	21	19	25	22	15	28	19	16	22	211	21.1
4	Sinapsi PD (IT)	22	21	20	28	21	18	23	19	16	22	210	21.0
5	EADS (DE)	20	18	17	24	17	16	19	17	16	19	183	18.3
6	Hayabusa (BE)	21	17	17	21	11	16	20	17	17	21	178	17.8

Germany's national 4-way team of the past years, Paratec-Saar, has a new lineup with three rookies, Dennis Gottschalk (Point), Petra van Overveld (Center Outside) and Wilhelm (Camera). They have joined forces with two original Paratec-Saar members, Jorn Thiele and Markus Bastuck, who are competing at their 4th world meet.

This year's world meet is the first outdoor competition for the new lineup. They have secured the 6th place after Round 8, which allows them to compete with the world's five top teams in Rounds 9 and 10. Germany had a team in the final round only once in Croatia 2004 where EADS finished with an 18.3 average in 5th place.

The Sun Path Products NSL News also features the CZ Ladies with coach Jan Klapka and his wife Jirina Klapkova in the lineup. It's the first time that the Czech Republic has a team in 4-way Women at a World Championship of Formation Skydiving.