posted Sep 16th, 2016 - Belgium, the small European country with roughly 800 skydivers, is still hosting the world champions in 4-way Open. NMP PCH HayaBusa defended the gold medals successfully with new member Jeroen "Bob" Nollet in the tail slot and was the only team that could oppose the U.S. delegation in Formation Skydiving competition.

SDC Core won the VFS gold medals on home turf, the Golden Knights won the third consecutive 8-way gold medals, and the U.S. team in 4-way Women outscored the French Girls for the first time at a world meet.

Arizona Airspeed ended up strongly in 2nd place after a slow start, where the pack of bronze medal contenders might have thought of a battle for silver medals instead. The slower start of three 2012 world champions (Thomas Hughes, Niklas Hemlin, Josh Hall) with Thiago Gomes in the tail slot lasted only for three rounds though. Airspeed then began to distance themselves round by round from France, Black Cat and Qatar Tigers.

FAI Mondial 2016			1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	Total	Avg
Rank	4-way Open		12,A,16	18,15,O	1,F,E,C	17,B,14	10,2,20	21,11,G	J,5,19	L,M,K,7	D,8,4	3,13,Q	Total	Avg
1	NMP PCH HayaBusa	BE	24(-1)	25	35	26	19(-1)	22	27(-2)	39	23	22	262	26.2
2	Arizona Airspeed	US	21(-1)	23	31	26	18	22(-1)	27	40(-1)	23	23	254	25.4
3	France	FR	21	20	30(-1)	21(-3)	18	21	27	39	21	20	238	23.8

Airspeed's three "warm-up rounds" also allowed NMP PCH HayaBusa to create a 9-point lead, and the Belgians took brutally advantage of it. However, the following and remaining seven rounds might have given the old and new world champions a headache and something to think about in the near future.

The total of the next seven rounds (4 - 10) added up to a 1-point advantage for Airspeed (179 - 178) after giving away only one more round (5) by a point. The 9-point advantage after Round 3 turned out to be the winning factor for HayaBusa.

It was a similar situation compared to the 8-way battle between Golden Knights and France in Dubai 2012, where the U.S. Army team won the competition with two strong early rounds for an 8-point lead and then idled in the top position for the remainder of the meet.

The last seven rounds at Skydive Chicago are an encouraging finish for Arizona Airspeed. The same lineup will not continue, not even at the upcoming USPA Nationals, where Mikhail Markine will be back in the point slot.

Then Thomas Hughes will step back after the national championships, and Airspeed has the next new beginning with outside center Ari Perelman. NMP PCH HayaBusa will be far ahead of the new Airspeed lineup; however, the last seven rounds at the Mondial 2016 were showing that it is not impossible to keep up with the 2-time world champions.

NMP PCH HayaBusa has two more years with the same lineup to get ready for the next showdown with a U.S. team at the World Championship of Formation Skydiving in 2018. The Belgians won the gold medals for the first time after four years with the same lineup. It will still be a very challenging task for any team in the world to beat HayaBusa in 2018...