posted Sep 18th, 2014 - The Golden Knights continued their Formation Skydiving dominance in the traditional events at the USPA Nationals with the gold medals in 16-way and 10-way. Three sets of gold medals and the bronze medals in 4-way Open are exactly the same results for the US Army delegation as in 2013. In addition, another Golden Knights lineup also won the Advanced Class competition in VFS 4-way.

The meet action continues this weekend in Europe where 23 teams have signed up for this year's ESL Championship. The Teuge Skydiving Center in the Netherlands is the host.

Belgium has hosted the event in 2012 and 2013 and won the ESL Spirit both times. It doesn't look so promising for this year's competition since only three teams from Belgium will compete this weekend. Thunder ISR will collect the winning ESL points in the AAA Class, and Creeps may add some more in the same category, but the Netherlands have registered teams in all four categories.

ESL Championship 2013			Rd. 1	Rd. 2	Rd. 3	Rd. 4	Rd. 5	Rd. 6	Rd. 7	Rd. 8	Rd. 9	Total	Avg
Rank	AAA Class	ESL	15,H,16	17,5,7	K,Q,P,22	F,D,9,2	J,3,14	G,4,20	A,O,18,13	6,10,12		Total	Avg
1	Thunder (BE)	10	21	22	24	29	19	19	22	17	-	173	21.6
2	Creeps (NL)	8	13	15	14	17	13	9	15	11	-	107	13.4
3	Eclipse (UK)	6	12	16	13	15	11	14	13	12	-	106	13.3
4	Lupus (EE)	5	9	13	10	17	11	11	12	10	-	93	11.6
5	Cool Runnings (NL)	4	10	12	13	14	10	11	9	9	-	88	11.0
6	Hvezdy (CZ)	3	9	11	10	13	7	7	9	6	-	72	9.0
Rank	AA Class	ESL	15,J,F	D,8,9	C,Q,21	B,G,N,6	14,O,L	A,K,M,P	E,H,7	19,13		Total	Avg
1	Les Stunts (BE)	10	14	12	14	14	10	21	17	9	-	111	13.9
2	Aerodyne 4mula (UK)	8	14	12	13	13	8	22	17	11	-	110	13.8
3	Half Ginger (NL)	6	12	11	10	12	9	15	16	8	-	93	11.6
4	Invidia Maubeuge (FR)	5	11	13	9	13	12	17	12	5	-	92	11.5
5	Mach4 (NL)	4	9	9	10	9	8	16	13	7	-	81	10.1
Rank	A Class	ESL	J,F,9	D,8	C,Q,21	B,G,N	O,L,19	A,K,M	E,H,7	6,A	2,B	Total	Avg
1	Zoonte (CZ)	10	18	9	12	17	11	17	15	11	-	110	13.8
2	Equal Pay 4 Women (UK)	8	14	10	12	16	8	17	17	13	-	107	13.4
3	Team Tetley (UK)	-	15	9	11	15	8	11	15	11	10	95	11.9
4	Cosmic Noise (BE)	-	12	11	10	13	11	15	13	10	4	95	11.9
5	Entropy (UK)	-	12	10	10	13	11	13	14	10	-	93	11.6
Rank	Rookie	ESL	J,F,E	D,H,M	C,Q,K	B,G,N	O,L,P	A,K,M	E,H,J	A,F,D		Total	Avg
1	Royal Navy Sea Fury (UK)	10	15	12	6	11	9	16	13	13	-	95	11.9
2	Newtons Maniacs (BE)	8	14	14	7	9	10	8	8	10	-	80	10.0
3	Jetmax (BE)	6	18	8	7	8	7	9	6	11	-	74	9.3

Thunder ISR has competed at an outdoor meet only once this year and will be eager to confirm the 22.9 average at the Tomscat Trophy 2014. The world's best unofficial amateur team will then add one more indoor competition to this year's agenda, the ISR Grand Prix 2014 in Roosendaal in November. Then the Thunder preparations for the 2015 season will begin, as the team has confirmed plans for another year.

Thunder will have as little serious competition in Teuge in 4-way as Arizona Airspeed or Team Airbus had at their national championships in the USA and in Germany. The competition in the other three 4-way categories will most likely be much closer.

However, this year's AAA Class competition has a new factor, as a team from Germany competes at the ESL Championship for the first time in the ESL AAA Class history. In fact, it's almost like a 4-way invasion from Germany, as two more teams have signed up for the AAA Class competition (Sky4s, Jump).

AtomiX just won the silver medals at the German Nationals 2014. The Sun Path Products NSL News had introduced the team on 26 May 2014 and followed up on 5 September 2014 with news that that the young team has a 5-year plan to get to the top rankings in Germany.

The ESL Championship 2014 will be the first international competition for AtomiX, and many others are planned for in the next five years.

Jump and Sky4s are both competing in the AA Class for Germany. Jump won the gold medals at the German Nationals this year and will be a formidable contender in this category. Germany is also new in the AA Class at the ESL Championship. Only one German 4-way team has ever competed for ESL points so far. Paradox Kassel won the ESL gold medals in the A Class competition of 2012. The German delegation was too small by then to be a factor in the race for the ESL Spirit...