posted Jun 28th, 2009 - Last weekend's scores have not been replaced by new results yet, and the NSL News goes back once again to the second busiest meet weekend of the 2009 season. The two European top contenders for the ESL Spirit, Netherlands and United Kingdom, both had their teams in action, as the NSL News story on 23 June 2009 reported.

The Dutch team won the weekend as of participation, and three teams from the Netherlands are also still holding the top positions on the leaderboard, Dynamic Fource in the AAA Class, Ignition in the AA Class and Meo in the Rookie Class. Only the Angry War Lords from Norway were able to stop a complete Dutch sweep. The NSL News will soon explain how the Angry War Lords did that.

For now, the NSL News reports some additional information of the competition in the United Kingdom. Phobia member Richard Head provided the details for the update.

Hibaldstow, home of the UK Nationals for the last decade, hosted the 2nd meet of the United Kingom Skydiving League (UKSL) on 20th - 21st June. The attendance was down compared to the previous meet due to a poor weather forcast. However, Hibaldstow does its best at critical times and managed to find the holes and keep the teams jumping when the weather broke. It was a slow meet and completed late on Sunday, as the teams had to deal with the weather and were sharing the second jump plane with tandems and fun jumpers.

The AAA Class was the best attended category for the first time in several years. Seven teams showed up, five of them were local teams, and entered what turned out to be a closely fought competition.

Sonicnutz posted some impressive scores in the first three rounds, all completed on day one, and were looking like they would easily walk away with the first place. However, the current top AAA Class team had to withdraw, as one team member was not available on Sunday.

With the favorites out of the UKSL game, the door was open for any of the other teams. All teams seemed to have their wobbles, as Richard Head reported, which may have been caused by the long waiting periods during the first day. In the end, Phobia managed to repeat the team's AAA Class victory from the Weston meet.

Fusion, with new members Phil Hartree, a former Bodyflight Rage member, and Derek Kent, formerly Bodyflight Havoc, finished in 2nd place with the new lineup. Comeback team Vision followed in 3rd place, after a tough battle with Kaizen and Fend 4 Yourself. Kaizen will be representing the United Kingdom at the FAI World Cup 2009 in the female category. Richard Head also said that AAA Class team Enigma showed everyone again that the AAA Class dive pool can be done with little actual training...

The AAA Class participation of this meet provides a view of the teams that will be attending this year's UK Nationals. The wind tunnels that opened in the United Kingdom four years ago have finally pushed a large wave of jumpers up into the top tier, promising the largest turnout of AAA Class teams ever at the national championship, with most of them able to score a 12.0 average and higher.

The strongest UK teams of the previous meet in the AA Class, Jet Blondes and Army Nemesis, did not show up this time and left the competition open for the two present teams, Random Vengeance and Strangers who had won the 3rd place at the May meet after a jump-off with the Air Force team Firefly.

Richard Head reported that Strangers repeated the team's performance from Weston where they started slowly, as well, and then came back at the end. The Strangers had an even worse Round 1 this time and were slowly pulling back on Random Vengence. However, it wasn't enough this time, and they ended up one singlt point behind in 2nd place.

Both UK teams ended up in top positions on the international AA Class leaderboard of 14 teams, Random Vengeance in 2nd and Strangers in 3rd place.

Local Hibaldstow team Unagi continued its dominance in the A Class and won the second UKSL meet of the 2009 season, as well, again over Slot Machines and 5Ds.

The new A Class team Uvavu had never even attempted the blocks before and had the A Class debut last weekend.

Unagi beat all A Class teams from the Netherlands after picking up the winning point over Creeps in the last round. It was still only the 2nd place on the international A Class leaderboard of 17 teams, as the Angry War Lords from Norway ran away from the field.

Two UKSL Rookie Class teams came back from the first meet of the 2009 season, Nimeton and Karma, and changed the outcome of the first duel. Karma was ahead by three points at the end of the 5-round meet in May. Nimeton now came back with a significantly increased meet average (2.2 - 4.8) and won this time. Karma was also stronger (2.7 - 3.7) compared to the first meet, but it wasn't enough this time.

This duel could lead into an exciting rivalry at the UK Nationals 2009, Richard Head mentioned. He added that the 3rd Rookie Class team in the RAFSPA squad, Typhoon, took the bronze medals on the team's debut, having not even jumped together before.

The next UKSL meet is scheduled for July 11 at Skydive Airkix.