posted Aug 29th, 2009 - The temporary transition of the NSL News office from DeLand, Florida, to Prostejov, Czech Republic, was successfully completed today. The competition site of the FAI World Cup 2009 is the place to be for the upcoming week.

Several teams have been training at the dropzone already for several days, and they all speak highly of the facilities and the host's hospitality. The dropzone seems to be ready for the event, and only the final preparations are in the works.

Milos Sklenka, President of the Organizing Committee and Chairman of the Falcon Air Parachute Club, invited manifest mastermind Bryan Burke from Arizona to help Meet Director Jiri Blaska manage the multi-plane and multi-event operation in Prostejov. Bryan Burke said that the three L 410 Turbolets will easily handle the Formation Skydiving and Artistic events.

He already had the overlapping situations between the events in mind. Seven of the nine members of the French 8-way team will compete in 4-way and in 8-way, including videographer Sylvain Girault.

Only Martial Ferre and Julien Olek compete only in 8-way. Julien Olek recovers from a broken leg and feels that competing in one event is more than enough for him at the moment. Erwan Pouliquen fills his slot 4-way for Aerokart Pamiers.

The German 8-way team EADS is in the same situation, as the five German 4-way champions of FSC Eisenach-Paratec compete in both events, as well. There is also a double duty situation in the Artistic Events where some Freestyle competitors are registered for the VRW 4-way competition, as well.

Bryan Burke will probably send all 4-way teams into the skies over Prostejov in the mornings or the afternoons and then have the 8-way teams and AE competitors join forces alternating with the 4-way teams.

The weather has been great this whole week, only today brought a longer break for the teams that were training on site. The planes were back up in the air in the evening when the weather system had passed, and several teams used even the last minutes of daylight to get some more training jumps in.

CamScore's Andrew Mansfield and Jo Bell have prepared the judging stations for tomorrow's training sessions, and the DZ-TV system will show the first training jumps later.

Russia and France have the largest Formation Skydiving delegations for the FAI World Cup 2009 in Prostejov.

The French 8-way team will most likely win the competition with the new lineup, and Aerokart Deep Blue has the same position as the top contender in the female 4-way category. The three French 4-way lineups, including the national team France Maubeuge, plus the VRW team, complete the French FS delegation.

Russia has even four teams registered for the Open Class event. It is a fact now that Black Cat and Skylight Barkli will have their rematch after the battle at the Russian Nationals 2009. Both teams are in Prostejov and have already made a few training jumps. Cross Road and Kaktus Hunter are the other two Russian teams.

The NSL News mentioned already earlier that Gradient Alpha and Contour join forces to compete for Russia in 8-way.

Cross Road members on site also confirmed that a Russian 4-way team will compete in the female category.

Veteran coach and 2-time world champion Gary Smith has already been working with the Dutch team NRG in Prostejov. The NSL News will use the opportunity to catch up with Gary Smith, who lives and works in the Netherlands, and ask him a few questions tomorrow.