posted Jun 13th, 2016 - It was almost a year ago when I felt like bringing the 4-way juniors to the attention of the valued Blue Skies Mag and SKYLEAGUE.COM audience. It surely was not the first time that I had given them attention at all. In fact, the new generation of 4-way competitors have fascinated me for a long time, and the SUN PATH PRODUCTS NSL NEWS has covered their participation in our sport many times for many years.

Fortunately, the emotional level in discussing their legitimate participation in our sport, and how to format it, is not even close to the waves when it comes to the discussion of 4-way women. However, the previous 4-way juniors article surely had similarities, as I wrote it when FAI/IPC were in the process of making the same mistake as when they created the 4-way women category.

I cannot express how much I have been enjoying our unique situation where I can share my biggest passion (after family life) with people of all genders and ages. That is after wind tunnels came into the 4-way world, of course.

TURNING POINTS: 4-way Juniors - Part 2

I had to get through 19 years of skydiving before the first wind tunnel was built that could be used for 4-way training (iFLY Orlando), and it took several more years before we found out that this is actually a great entertainment for kids, as well.

We were sharing the 4-way and 8-way joy early enough with the other gender (I am a boy), as my first 8-way lineup included Marion Bredenwischer, a sweet flower-power hippie girl who was very serious when it came to skydiving, and who flew circles around most of the boys in the early '80s, including the 8-way team captain (Lothar Lippold), a tough officer of the German military services.

Two more young ladies (Brigitte Keller and Andrea Schlagheck) competed with my German 8-way team at the World Meet in Brazil 1987, and I also had the pleasure to compete with a mixed-gender lineup (Kirsten Ernst, Thomas Spielvogel and Norbert Trost) at the next World Meet in Spain 1989. Everybody who competed in Empuriabrava that year may remember how Kirsten competed with a cast on her leg after breaking an ankle a few weeks before the meet. We could not keep her away from making the trip, and we picked her up after landing, so she could use her crutches for the way back to the hangar. Yes, we packed for her—but that was all the help she would accept...

Anyhow, I was getting carried away, sorry.

What I actually wanted to say is that we had only grown-up 4-way competitors of both genders and without a female 4-way category at that time, and I never even spent a thought on the question whether women might be handicapped in skydiving or not.

That was probably also because there was that French Coca Cola 4-way team (all-female) who put all of us in place at the World Cup 1988 in Vichy, where they were allowed to compete as a guest team.

This has changed now, as we can mix up our beautiful sport not only between the genders; we also have 4-way juniors who we can share the passion with. Incredible.

Did you see French national coach Marin Ferre filling a slot in his Aerokart Ak'demie lineup at this year's World Challenge in Bedford?

Jan Klapka's wife Jirina Klapkova was doing the same for the Junior Cubs team from the Hurricane Factory. Not to mention the family business that we have already heard of in the past: Pro Team from Finland with parents and son, 4astrophe from Canada with father and mixed-gender siblings

On top of that, there were all the teams with only 4-way juniors, and they were all on the same leaderboards - none of them in last place of the four different World Challenge categories.

OK, I have to admit that I have really enjoyed the special mixed-gender situation in skydiving competition for—let's say—the first 25 years of my skydiving career, as I really like women (my wife on top of all of them).

This has not changed, even after getting wed and fathering three kids, two of them girls. I still love to be at a competition, or just at a DZ, and share the passion with everybody. Hey, I played soccer/futbol when I grew up (until I was 25) and we surely did not have any female team mates or opponents. So it was twice as nice when skydiving took me away from a real male-dominated sport.

But now I go to a wind tunnel competition, and I see girls and boys, teenagers, women and men—and they all do what I love to do. And they perform on all kinds of scoring levels. Nobody else has that. NOBODY (write me if you know better; I would be interested to learn which sport has to offer the same).

I spent some extra time in Bedford to watch the younger generations doing their thing, and it was simply the greatest fun watching them. They are so playful and don't take things too serious— while they are still performing very well. There might be something to learn... It was pure pleasure for me to share our favorite time with the most colorful combination of 4-way competitors that I have seen in my lifetime.

It is bad enough to me that FAI/IPC decided to separate genders and generations from each other, and that is not a new statement. However, I am glad that the officials and law-makers in our sport have at least not separated the girls from the boys in the official 4-way Junior category. Hmmmmm, why not, actually...?