posted May 14th, 2016 - The Sun Path Products NSL News started a series of previews that introduces the top contenders for medals at the Mondial 2016 in September. In fact, it is mostly the story of the bronze medal position, as the battle for the gold medals will most likely be an exclusive affair between NMP PCH HayaBusa and Arizona Airspeed.

The series began on May 2nd with the situation of the reigning bronze medalist of Prostejov 2014, Evolution from Canada, followed by more details of the French national team in 4-way Open on May 4th.

The audience still has FLY-IN France in 1st place in the race for the bronze medals, while Evolution currently ends up in 3rd place behind Black Cat from Russia. The Qatar Tigers are considered the underdog, while Satori XL doesn't seem to be in contention for the 3rd place on the Mondial 2016 leaderboard.

The featured five contenders, plus HayaBusa and Airspeed, would make a total of seven teams within striking distance of any of the medal positions. However, one of the same seven teams would not even get into the final Round 10 if the cut after Round 9 was still in the rules.

The recent rule change now allows all seven potential medal contenders to complete ten rounds, and the team in 7th place after Round 9 still has the opportunity to make up ground and possibly move into a medal position.

Evolution is not the only team of the five candidates with previous bronze medal experiences. The team currently in 2nd place of the bronze medal poll, Black Cat, has actually three members who have also won their own 4-way bronze medals in the past.

World Meet 2004			1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	Total	Avg
Rank	4-way Open		B,P,C,18	9,15,16	K,11,19	E,F,7,5	A,J,21,12	6,4,10	17,Q,L,1	H,14,3	13,22,O	N,M,D,2	Total	Avg
1	DeLand Majik	US	29	23	17	30	18	19	27	21	19	24	227	22.7
2	Maubeuge	FR	28	22	18	30	17	19	23	20	18	24	219	21.9
3	SkyPanthers	RU	24	21	19	25	22	15	28	19	16	22	211	21.1
4	Sinapsi PD	IT	22	21	20	28	21	18	23	19	16	22	210	21.0
5	EADS	DE	20	18	17	24	17	16	19	17	16	19	183	18.3
6	Hayabusa	BE	21	17	17	21	11	16	20	17	17	21	178	17.8

Vasily Korotkov and Evgeny Stashchenko competed with the Sky Panthers at the World Meet in Rijeka 2004 and finished 3rd behind U.S.A. and France. Vadim Niyazov was on camera for the Sky Panthers in 2004 and has been filming Black Cat since the team was formed. Michail Kuznetzov was the team's sponsor, and Alexei Minaev completed the bronze medal lineup in 2004.

Michail Kuznetzov continued with three new team members (Vladimir Pavlenko, Oleg Shalamykhin, Sergej Shenin) and a new team name (Barkli) and won another set of 4-way bronze medals in 2010, while Vasily Korotkov, Evgeny Stashchenko and Vadim Niyazov launched their own Black Cat 4-way project.

Barkli continued to win the national championships and still competed for Russia in 2012 (5th) and 2014 (5th). Black Cat eventually won the national championships in 2014 and became Russia's national 4-way team with the goal of bringing back sets of 4-way medals to Russia.

Valeriy Gredasov, Alexander Kvochur and Valentin Ilin complete the current lineup. Sponsor Valeriy Gredasov shares a slot with Alexander Kvochur, who is one of the original Black Cat members and has a full-time job as a commercial airline pilot, as well.

Black Cat has met the other 2016 bronze medal contenders on a regular basis after winning the Russian Nationals 2014 and qualifying as the national team in 4-way Open. In fact, Black Cat already won the first FAI medals at the FAI World Cup 2015, silver with a 21.9 average, two points ahead of the new French national team.

Black Cat followed up well with more silver medals at the 1st FAI World Indoor Skydiving Championships. The distance to France had increased (19 points), and Black Cat also outscored the Qatar Tigers (28.1 - 26.0) in Prague.

FAI World Air Games 2015			1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	Total	Avg
Rank	4-way Open		B,C,17,2	N,19,4	13,14,F	6,E,O,L	7,1,A	D,18,P,22	M,H,5,15	16,9,12	21,K,G,Q	11,20,3	Total	Avg
1	NMP PCH HayaBusa	BE	29	26	23	36	28	23	31	24	27	22	269	26.9
2	Arizona Airspeed	US	29	27	22	36	28	19	29	25	30	20	265	26.5
3	Black Cat	RU	23	23	21	30	21	21	26	23	27	19	234	23.4
4	Qatar Tigers	QA	22	21	17	28	23	19	27	19	21	17	214	21.4
5	Evolution	CA	21	22	17	28	20	15	24	20	22	16	205	20.5
6	Dubai Asaar Black	AE	21	20	17	20	20	17	23	19	20	17	194	19.4

The ranking order was reversed at the Clash of Champions 2015, and Evolution finished ahead of Black Cat, as well. The last 2015 event was the World Air Games 2015 where the Russian team came back strongly just a week later. Black Cat won the FAI bronze medals, with all potential 2016 medal contenders competing in Dubai, except for Satori XL.

Black Cat started at the first two indoor meets of the 2016 season as strongly as at the end of 2015. The distance to Qatar Tigers (11) and Satori XL (18) was significant at the Wind Games, and the thrilling 3-team battle with FLY-IN France and Qatar Tigers at the World Challenge 2016 was a preview of the expected situation at the Mondial 2016.

Three of the Black Cat members (Valentin Ilin, Vasily Korotkov, Evgeny Stashchenko) and videographer Vadim Niyazov still have to master the additional 8-way burden at the FAI World Meet. They also want to defend the Russian 8-way bronze medals successfully with Tanay, which Barkli had won in a jump-off over France in Prostejov 2014...