posted Jan 25th, 2016 - The potential for a U.S. Formation Skydiving Sweep at the Mondial 2016 on home turf has been a topic of the Sun Path Products NSL News for a while.

The situation looked very promising from the U.S. perspective after the USPA Nationals 2015, when Solly Williams, Gary Smith and Chris Talbert discussed the topic in a Coaches Corner on October 29th.

The TURNING POINTS column in the BLUE SKIES MAG October issue added more details to the story and confirmed the strong position of the U.S. delegation at that point in time.

The topic was back in discussion on January 10th, and the first serious question marks appeared behind the chances for a U.S. Sweep after the results at the World Air Games 2015.

Not much has changed in 8-way and VFS where the U.S. teams (Golden Knights - SDC Core) are still in strong positions. However, the recent VFS scores at the Wind Games 2016 indicated that SDC Core's team captain Jason Russell had a good reason to keep his team on alert, when he and his team discussed the situation in this event with the Sun Path Products NSL News on January 12th. France has two strong teams in pursuit of the U.S. team.

The dominating position of the Golden Knights in 4-way Women last year lost strength in Dubai when the French FLY-IN Girls finished much closer to the U.S. national team than expected, first at the Clash of Champions 2015 and then at the World Air Games 2015.

Arizona Airspeed's recent change of the 2016 lineup neither increased the chances for a potential U.S. Sweep in September this year. The earlier U.S. Sweep story was posted a day after Airspeed had canceled the trip to Spain for the Wind Games and did not know whether Josh Hall or Mikhail Markine would fill the open slot for Chris Farina.

It turns out that Mikhail Markine is the new Airspeed member, and the team feels stronger with the new lineup, as they explained on January 20th. However, the odds are not in favor of the U.S. team in 4-way Open, as the new lineup with a few new slot assignments goes up against the reigning 4-way world champions with the same lineup in its second year.

Chris Farina said in his live NSL Talk on January 18th that he fully supports the U.S. bid for all FS gold medals at the Mondial 2016, and he believes that Airspeed can still win the 4-way gold medals for the U.S. delegation, with or without him. No matter what - Hayabusa is still the biggest obstacle on the way to a new FS Sweep...