posted Jul 27th, 2009 - The names of 11 teams from Finland have been added to the leaderboard, which makes it already a 3-nation affair at the moment, as several teams from Switzerland joined the competition at the Nuggets Cup 2009 in Leutkirch, Germany.

Two of the teams from Finland placed themselves in the Top 5 of last weekend's AAA Class leaderboard of currently 18 teams. The team names are not new to the NSL News audience. The Tigers have been the national champion since 2007, the Pro Team has been the challenger ever since. The NSL News has covered this exciting race for the top spot in Finland with several stories.

It was the national championship that was completed after ten rounds last weekend. This means that another change of power took place at the same time when Incognito Leutkirch beat the Chicas for the first time in Germany. The German teams will still have to go for the top spot in the female category at the German Nationals 2009. The Pro Team is now already the new national 4-way team of Finland.

It has been a long road and a great effort that brought the Pro Team to this national championship title and the status as the national 4-way team. The NSL News reported on 15 March 2009 that a very important season was coming up for Laura Miettinen (Tail), Outi Pohjola (Point), Eija Suvala (Center Inside) and Kimmo Pohjola (Center Outside), with Mikko Kajala on camera.

It was a preview of the World Challenge 2009 where the Pro Team competed for the second time after beating the Tigers at the World Challenge 2008. The Tigers then fought back and beat the Pro Team first at the Swedish Nationals 2008 (16.2 - 14.8) and then again at the Finish Nationals 2008 (15.4 - 15.0) by four points. The Pro Team now turned the table and won this year's championship by four points.

Judge Jukka Olkkonen, who is also managing the smaller 4-way league meets in Finland and provided the Shamrock Showdown 2008 with the judging system, reported a great meet from Finland. Perfect summer weather attracted two more teams than in 2008 to this year's national championships in Utti.

He called the competition between the Pro Team and the Tigers a new "battle between the north and the south". The Pro Team calls the small town of Rovaniemi in Finland's north, near the arctic circle, its home. The Tigers are from the Helsinki area where most of the Finish people and skydivers live.

Jukka Olkkonen said that the Pro Team won the meet with the first round. The Tigers could never come back from the 3-point deficit, even though both teams went neck to neck throughout the remaining nine rounds. Neither team was able to create a difference of more than one point - except in Round 1. It was, in fact, a stunning meet opener by the Pro Team, as the AAA Class scores of Round 1 clearly show. The 20-pointer is still the sole highscore for this round.

There was more drama in the middle of the competition when the Tigers tried hard to get closer to the Pro Team. Jukka Olkkonen reported that Round 7 brought a make or break situation for the Tigers: "The Tigers somehow did not get their video camera switched on properly. The official score was zero points, and the case went to the video review panel."

The Tigers were already four points behind the Pro Team after six rounds, a zero in Round 7 would have been the end of the story.

The panel decided that it was the team's responsibility to have properly functioning equipment, and a rejump was denied. The Tigers still tried to get a rejump and filed a protest, as they had to in this desperate situation.

The protest did not have great chances for success, and the jury did not even accept it. However, the jury advised the team that there might be a better chance by filing an appeal. Jukka Olkkonen said that the dramatic story eventually came to a happy end: "The Tigers came back with an appeal, which was signed by all other teams, and they finally got the rejump."

The competition was finally decided in freefall and not with paperwork. The Tigers won Round 7 after the rejump by one point and reduced the difference to three points, with three more rounds to go.

However, the Pro Team did not flinch after Round 7, tied the next two rounds and won Round 10. The 15.9 average is the highest meet average in the team's history, and the Pro Team can begin with the preparations for the next big goal: the World Meet 2010 in Russia. The FAI World Cup 2009 is the next step on the way.

Jukka Olkkonen and the Formation Skydiving competition community in Finland together hope that the fight between these two top teams will continue in the future and attract even more competitors to follow the great examples that the Pro Team and the Tigers have set in the past years.