posted Aug 1st, 2016 - The Belgian teams did not complete any more rounds at their national championships last weekend, and the faster second half of the 10-round draw could not be used by the AAA Class teams to increase their meet averages.

However, even the first five slower rounds of the competition still lifted NMP PCH HayaBusa to the highest 4-way outdoor average of the 2016 season, disregarding the scores at the CISM World Military Parachuting Championship, where HayaBusa finished with a 35.1 average.

The recent scores at several national championships provided data and information that allow a closer look at the current team world rankings, especially in the run-up to the FAI World Championship of Formation Skydiving at the Mondial 2016. The Sun Path Products NSL News sorted the teams in two different ways, according to this year's outdoor results only.

The first leaderboard is showing the ranking order of all 4-way teams in the world, according to their best outdoor scores at any 2016 meets that are recorded in the SKYLEAGUE.COM database. The first three places are identical with

Rank	Team 4-way Open	Country	Best
1	NMP PCH HayaBusa	BE	24.8
2	Arizona Airspeed	US	24.3
3	France 4-way Open	FR	23.7
4	France Women	FR	22.1
5	Qatar Tigers	QA	21.5
6	Thunder ISR	BE	21.2
7	Airbus Illertissen	DE	20.8
8	SDC Rhythm XP	US	20.4
9	Satori XL	UK	20.3
10	Turbo 2.0	US	18.3

the second leaderboard that is showing only the national teams. The ranking order between the three top teams is also not far from the expected outcome at the Mondial 2016.

However, there are additional world class teams who will not compete at Skydive Chicago in September, where only one team is allowed to represent each country in any of the Formation Skydiving competition categories. The French Girls are not on the second leaderboard with the national teams in the 4-way Open Class. They will still compete at the Mondial in 4-way Women.

Thunder ISR and SDC Rhythm XP will miss the world meet, as they are not the national teams for their countries, even though JaNette Lefkowitz has a slot with the Golden Knights in 4-way Women. The third U.S. team, Turbo 2.0, was only a pickup team for the Shamrock Showdown 2016.

FAI World Meet 2014			1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	Total	Avg
Rank	4-way Open		E,3,C,5	F,6,D,21	19,H,2	M,4,1	O,14,A,P	8,J,16	7,11,12	22,20,15	17,G,18	13,B,9	Total	Avg
1	NMP-PCH Hayabusa	BE	32	29	25	25	33	25	22	18	26	29	264	26.4
2	Arizona Airspeed	US	31	27	25	24	31	23	22	17	24	29	253	25.3
3	Evolution	CA	31	28	24	22	28	23	20	21	25	27	249	24.9
4	VoltR	FR	24	26	18	23	26	20	20	13	24	21	215	21.5
5	Barkli	RU	24	23	20	22	25	21	19	16	18	26	214	21.4
6	Dubai Asaar Black	AE	18	20	17	17	20	14	15	13	17	20	171	17.1
7	Vision 99	UK	18	20	16	16	19	15	15	13	16	-	148	16.4
8	Paratec-Saar	DE	19	23	18	14	22	16	15	13	7	-	147	16.3
9	Rotor Out	AU	17	19	17	17	21	14	13	12	15	-	145	16.1
10	eX3MO 4	IT	18	17	16	15	17	15	14	11	14	-	137	15.2

The second leaderboard presents the Top 10 rankings of national teams in 4-way Open. It is far from complete though, as some of the Top 10

Rank	Team 4-way Open	Country	Best
1	NMP PCH HayaBusa	BE	24.8
2	Arizona Airspeed	US	24.3
3	France 4-way Open	FR	23.7
4	Qatar Tigers	QA	21.5
5	Airbus Illertissen	DE	20.8
6	Satori XL	UK	20.3
7	Gryttjom Volo	SE	18.1
8	Rotor Out	AU	17.6
9	Pangaea	DK	16.3
10	Savolo	ZA	15.5

nations at the FAI World Championship of Formation Skydiving 2014 in Prostejov are not yet on this year's outdoor leaderboard.

Especially Evolution (Canada) and Black Cat (Russia) will shake up the Top 10 rankings without a doubt. The Italian 4-way teams will crown their national champion very soon, who will most likely claim a Top 10 spot as in the past decades, while the United Arab Emirates may not send a Dubai team to the U.S.A. this year.

The four teams currently in the rankings between 7 - 10 (Sweden, Australia, Denmark, South Africa) will still be facing a tough battle to make it to the Top 10. There is no cut any longer, neither after Round 8 nor for the final round. However, the battle for the Top 10 spots will be the same - only extended by two rounds...