posted Jun 2nd, 2016 - The recent update from the Netherlands on May 21st was good news, as it confirmed that the European country will have a well prepared 4-way Open Class national team at the Mondial 2016.

However, bad news was confirmed at the same time. The Dutch national 8-way team M8trix has disbanded, at least temporarily, and the Netherlands will not be represented in this event at Skydive Chicago in September.

M8trix was formed in 2011 and has a perfect progression record throughout the six 8-way competitions that the team attended. The 13.9 average at the FAI World Cup 2015 was the last and the highest result that M8trix posted since 2011. M8trix released an official announcement earlier this year, which explained the situation to fans and supporters:

"Every season comes to a close and new plans have to be made. Also for team M8trix this has been a recurring activity. In some years this went well, others were tougher. But we've always managed to stay true to our goal of improving our skills and raising the level of our performance.

This is where we find our satisfaction in training and competing. This also means that it becomes tougher each time to find people willing and able to fill any open slots. This time around, this proved to be too hard. After withdrawal of two (key) members, and after an extensive search and many discussions, we could not find the right people to fill these slots and stay true to our goals. That is the time you must conclude that 'the train has reached its final destination'. There will be no activity planned for team M8trix in 2016. How this will play out in the future only time can tell.

For now we want to thank our former members, fans, sponsors and everyone involved for all the support through the last five years. We have had an amazing journey from an able, willing, but fairly clueless 8-way team to FAI bronze medals in the European Championships, while breaking several Dutch records

FAI World Cup 2015			1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	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	Aerodyne Maubeuge	FR	28	30	23	18	18	17	18	26	19	18	215	21.5
2	Tanay	RU	24	24	19	17	17	15	14	20	15	15	180	18.0
3	Qatar Falcons	QA	17	19	15	12	13	13	12	15	13	14	143	14.3
4	M8trix	NL	20	17	15	12	11	11	13	17	12	11	139	13.9
5	Ex3energy	IT	11	10	12	9	8	9	11	11	10	8	99	9.9
6	Awkward Turtles	UK	7	4	5	6	3	6	5	2	4	4	46	4.6

The key players who could not continue were player coach Gary Smith and Leander van Schriek. Gary Smith was also coaching the Qatar Falcons, who eventually outscored M8trix at the FAI World Cup 2015. The Qatar Falcons required his full attention, and he had to quit M8trix.

Leander van Schriek has moved to California with his wife for a 2-year period at the Naval Postgraduate School. He had to leave M4trix and M8trix behind, at least for the two years in California. He has now joined the iFLY SF Bay Indoor Cloud League team where he helps with his skills, knowledge and experiences.

All current M4trix members were also in the M8trix lineup, and there are chances that the 8-way lineup might have a comeback in the future. A break would not be new to M8trix, as the team did not train and compete for a whole year in 2013...