posted Jul 12th, 2009 - This weekend's international leaderboard keeps filling up with scores. There are already several interesting team names on the scoreboard, which will offer content for interesting stories.

The scores from the Netherlands came in first. The second Dutch League meet of the 2009 season took place on the island of Texel. The Paracentrum Texel hosted last year's ESL Championship and is the new home of former DeLand Majik (2004) and DeLand Fire (2006) 4-way world champion Gary Smith.

Gary Smith was on competition site for the event and was supported by other Dutch coaches who helped to provide the participating teams with free coaching throughout the competition: NRG members Leander van Schriek and Gerhard Schut, plus former national 8-way competitor and IPC Delegate Marc Hoornweg.

The six meet rounds were already completed on Saturday. DL Director Gerhard Schut said that the weather forecast was not too promising: "If there would be jumpable weather it would be on Saturday. For this reason, we decided to skip the training round and started directly with Round 1."

The Dutch skies were still grey with light rain at the team captains meeting in the morning. However, the clouds began to break up by the end of the short meeting, and the teams received their first boarding calls. Two jump planes were continuously flying, and it turned out to become a busy day. The eight teams accepted shorter calls than usual and completed all six rounds by 7:00 pm.

Gerhard Schut reported some time pressure at the end of the day when Air Elementals needed a re-jump due to camera trouble, just before closing time of the airport. A few phone calls with the airport manager resolved the problem. Quick packing and briefing allowed the Rookie Class team to get back in the air just in time.

The competition day on Texel was concluded with a great barbeque and free beer offered by the dropzone. The award ceremony followed shortly after that, with DL medals awarded after handicap to Serge's Angels in the AA Class, Murphy Mania in the A Class and Teriyaki in the Rookie Class.

Gerhard Schut added that it turned out to be a good decision to speed up the meet: "Sunday morning, the island, and in fact the whole Netherlands, woke up with heavy overcast skies and continuous rain that continued well into the afternoon..."

The national championship of the Netherlands is the next event and begins on August 8.