posted Sep 20th, 2015 - The aftermath of the FAI World Cup 2015 continues with the competition videos of the two teams behind NMP-PCH Hayabusa. Black Cat from Russia won the silver medals, and the new French Open Class lineup finished in 3rd place after a good battle with the Russian team.

The final medal rankings of the World Cup 2015 are identical with the outcome at the World Cup 2013 in Banja Luka, where a different Russian 4-way team won the silver medals. Barkli (Nikolay Vylegzhanin, Vladimir Pavlenko, Oleg Shalomikhin, Sergey Shenin, Andrey Seliverstov on camera) was the Russian national team in 2013 and 2014, while Black Cat won the silver medals for Russia in Teuge.

It was the World Cup 2009 in Prostejov where Black Cat competed at the team's previous FAI/IPC event and outscored Barkli by two points in 4th place.

FAI World Cup 2015			Rd. 1	Rd. 2	Rd. 3	Rd. 4	Rd. 5	Rd. 6	Rd. 7	Rd. 8	Rd. 9	Rd. 10	Total	Avg
Rank	AAA Class		1,4,D	E,3,L,G	C,16,N,9	13,J,11	Q,2,A,14	K,7,8	P,18,21	15,12,F	B,22,O,10	20,5,M	Total	Avg
1	NMP-PCH Hayabusa	BE	22	32	32	24	23	24	24	22	23	24	250	25.0
2	Black Cat	RU	21	26	27	18	23	24	21	19	20	20	219	21.9
3	VR4 France	FR	20	26	25	19	23	20	22	18	20	24	217	21.7

The competition between the two teams began long ago. Black Cat members Vasily Korotkov and Evgeny Stashchenko were Sky Panthers team mates with Michail Kuznetsov and Alexey Minaev when they won the 4-way bronze medals at the World Meet 2004 in Rijeka. They had switched to 4-way after winning two 8-way gold medals for Russia in 2001 and 2003.

The former 8-way team mates split up after their 8-way success, and the Sky Panthers also changed their lineup after the 2004 bronze medals in 4-way. Vasily Korotkov, Evgeny Stashchenko and Alexey Minaev continued with the new Black Cat project, while Vladimir Pavlenko, Oleg Shalomikhin and Sergey Shenin were hired for the Barkli teams with sponsors Leonid Kazinets and Michail Kuznetsov.

Vasily Korotkov, Evgeny Stashchenko and Alexey Minaev invited young Alexander Kvochur to train and compete with Black Cat.

The battle between Barkli and Black Cat went back and forth over the years until Barkli won another set of bronze medals for Russia at the World Meet 2010 in Menzelinsk. Barkli also competed for Russia at the world meets in 2012 and 2014 until Black Cat took back the upper hand this year when Barkli did not compete.

Vasily Korotkov and Evgeny Stashchenko have former Sunny Wind member Valentin Ilin in their Black Cat lineup this year and trained and competed with sponsor Valeriy Gredasov, who posted a 21.8 average at the Paraclete XP Outdoor Championship 2015 after six rounds. Alexey Minaev and Alexander Kvochur have been the alternates.

Then the two 8-way world champions and Valentin Ilin had Alexander Kvochur back in the lineup for the World Cup in Teuge, and this combination of three Black Cat generations won the next set of silver medals for Russia with their special way of engineering 4-way sequences. By the way: Videographer and team manager Vadim "Jos" Niyazov has been filming the Russian 4-way teams since 2004...