posted Aug 6th, 2009 - The NSL News reported extensively of the World Games 2009, mainly with the help of Arizona Airspeed's Craig Girard. The Belgian national team Hayabusa Defence finished in 4th place in Taiwan and has two more international 4-way competitions on the meet agenda, first the annual military CISM championships, then the FAI World Cup 2009.

Team speaker Roy Janssen mentioned in his meet summary that his team would have some work left to do with coach Joey Jones to get ready for the upcoming two events. Joey Jones now provided the NSL News with his own update after a very busy summer in Europe and his latest work with Hayabusa.

Joey Jones just finished his work with Evolution at the Swedish Nationals 2009, after coaching a lot of 4-way, organizing 30- and 40-ways, some BASE jumping and running speedflying camps. He was in Spain doing some last minute training with Hayabusa when he updated the NSL News. He began his update with his Scandinavian project:

"It has been a tough year for the Swedish skydiving community. First the only Twin Otter broke its landing gear and is out for the rest of the season. Then the weather has made this summer one of the worst in Swedish skydiving history.

Evolution planned 200 jumps until this point in the season, and they have only completed 70. The one benefit is that they have decided to change their training to a more suitable location next year."

It got worse when the weather also interfered with the national championships. The NSL News reported already earlier that the meet had to be re-located to another competition site. Joey Jones confirmed the challenging logistics for the Swedish teams and officials: "To top it all off, the site of the nationals was rained out, and they had to move the championships to another airport and change the aircraft for the second time."

However, he was still impressed with the performance of the guest team from Finland, the Pro Team, which had to go along with the same meet conditions. He gave the Pro Team great credit after winning the Swedish Nationals 2009:

"My hats really off to the Finnish National Team. Their hard work has really paid off with great improvements across the board. I am looking forward to seeing their continued growth in 2010."

He also mentioned another Swedish 4-way team when he talked about the Swedish Nationals 2009: "Another team in Sweden is showing dedication and good decision making: Top Gun. This was the team's first year together, and they finished in third place with an 11.7 average. They completed one training camp in DeLand with Solly Williams and finished the year working with Sara Sims of Bodyflight Storm."

Eventually, he evaluated Evolution's performance briefly, as well: "It was somehow a disappointing national championship. However, we are looking forward to our rematch with the Fins at the World Cup."

Joey Jones also worked with a Swedish female team that is planning to step up its training efforts and work towards competing as the Swedish national team in the female category: "It would be nice to see Sweden represented again in the international arena. Go Team Jumpers!"

Then he turned south and provided an overview of his latest work with Hayabusa Defence: "Hayabusa just finished the last training camp of the year. We fixed a few areas where we saw that we were not competitive and really brought the whole year together."

Hayabusa is now heading to the CISM World Championships in Slovenia where they will try to defend their military gold medals of 2008. Then the Belgian national team will travel directly to the World Cup in the Czech Republic.

Joey Jones is expecting an exciting competition and a great Begian performance:

"From the results in Taiwan it looks like it is going to be a great World Cup. With the difficulty surrounding the exits gone and the success of this camp the Belgians feel very good about their ability to compete at the highest level. It is disappointing that there will be no US team competing at the World Cup. The level that Airspeed sets is excellent and a huge motivator."

The NSL News will be reporting live from the competition site in Prostejov.