posted May 24th, 2015 - French national 4-way coach Marin Ferre recently updated the Sun Path Products NSL News with information of the Aerokart Ak'demie 4-way project for kids and teenagers that he oversees. He also provided a brief update of the French national team in the 4-way Open Class, which is actually his main coaching project, as the story on January 3rd explained.

Marin Ferre first guided the French 4-way Open Class team to the silver medals in Maubeuge 2008 before winning the gold medals in Menzelinsk 2010. At the same time, he worked with the famous Deep Blue lineup who ran away from all other teams in the world in 4-way Women and brought home the second set of French 4-way gold medals in 2010.

He continued his work with the French national teams in 4-way Women and defended the 2010 gold medals successfully in 2012 and 2014. National coach Jeremie Rollett then assigned him to the challenging job of bringing back the new French national team in 4-way Open to the world's top level.

The new French lineup in 4-way Open consists of Charles Rommel, Kevin Mansion, Damien Gouriou and Laurence Herve, with Loic Campy on camera. Several of the French 4-way and 8-way top competitors have attended different events this year, including the three teams who finished within the Top 7 at the World Challenge 2015. However, the new French national teams in 4-way Open and 4-way Women have not competed yet at any of those events since the FAI World Championship of Formation Skydiving 2014.

Laurence Herve celebrated the achievements of the French Girls at her last meet in 4-way Women at the 5th Dubai International Parachuting Championship, together with two former team mates (Sophia Pecout, Christine Malnis) and new French Girls member Anais Maillet.

Her new Open Class team mates Kevin Mansion and Charles Rommel had their own last meet with former 8-way national team Venturi at the same event. All new French national 4-way Open Class competitors staid away from the World Challenge, where only French 8-way world champions (Gavroche), the B-Team (Artemis) and two French Girls (Weembi) competed in 4-way.

World Challenge 2015			Rd. 1	Rd. 2	Rd. 3	Rd. 4	Rd. 5	Rd. 6	Rd. 7	Rd. 8	Rd. 9	Rd. 10	Total	Avg
Rank	4-way Open		15,K,E,F	11,22,A	16,H,M,19	3,10,D	17,18,P	4,12,O	5,N,L,G	14,B,C,20	2,1,21	J,Q,6,13	Total	Avg
1	NMP-PCH Hayabusa	BE	40	24	32	25	29	26	38	30	24	33	301	30.1
2	SDC Rhythm XP	US	36	24	28	22	28	23	34	26	23	29	273	27.3
3	Weembi Lille	FR	36	20	31	25	23	23	31	29	21	29	268	26.8
4	Gavroche	FR	34	23	30	23	25	23	32	27	22	24	263	26.3
5	Thunder ISR	BE	35	21	29	23	27	21	28	24	22	27	257	25.7
6	SportLoto	RU	36	23	30	21	24	21	32	22	23	22	254	25.4
7	Artemis Saumur RealFly	FR	33	21	28	22	23	21	29	27	19	27	250	25.0

Marin Ferre said that the new 4-way Open Class lineup is "work in progress". Attendance at any competition was delayed since new member Charles Rommel was injured in a landing accident at the end of April. He said that it is not a serious injury, and the complete lineup will be back in training in July.

He has scheduled the first competition of the new French 4-way Open class lineup for the World Cup/European Championship in Teuge, Netherlands, this September.

The new team has been busy in the meantime. Marin Ferre said that he has completed 400 training jumps and 14 hours of indoor training since the beginning of the year. He is happy with the progression and feels very confident about the future of the team. He plans to send them back into the international competition scene as soon as possible: "I hope that by next winter we will be able to organize the training like before, I mean a 2-week period in Florida, including the Shamrock Showdown." However, he added that times are financially more difficult for the French teams, and all plans depend on the available budget.