posted Sep 28th, 2016 - It is past half time in the 4-way competition of the Russian Nationals 2016, and all ten rounds will most likely be completed on Wednesday. The beautiful fall weather in Siberia made it easy for the host to get the two traditional Formation Skydiving events done within four days, while keeping them separated from each other.

The same three Black Cat members who competed in both events at the FAI Mondial 2016 (Valentin Ilin, Vasily Korotkov, Evgeny Stashchenko) will once again collect two gold medals for their double duties, as they did last year.

This is still a special occasion, even for Vasily Korotkov and Evgeny Stashchenko, who have pretty much won anything there is to win, and that not only in Russia.

Russian Nationals 2016		1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	Total	Avg
Rank	4-way Open	E,21,7	F,1,D,K	G,8,C,J	H,19,3	Q,4,11	5,22,B	15,10,O	18,20,A	M,12,L,9	13,P,2	14,16,N	Total	Avg
1	Black Cat	25	27	25	23	20 (-2)	22	-	-	-	-	-	142	23.7
2	Barguzin	26	23	21	19	19	17	-	-	-	-	-	125	20.8
3	DOSAAF	22	20	19	21	14	14	-	-	-	-	-	110	18.3
4	XO Team	20	22	19	15	17	14	-	-	-	-	-	107	17.8
5	Tanay Wolves	19	19	18	15	15	13	-	-	-	-	-	99	16.5
6	DZ Grozniy	15	21	16	17	16	12	-	-	-	-	-	97	16.2
7	Tanaiski Prianik	15	17	15	14	13	13	-	-	-	-	-	87	14.5
8	Girls	13	18	13	12	14	13	-	-	-	-	-	83	13.8
9	UFO	3	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	3	3.0

All other Tanay 8-way members are also competing in 4-way this week. Vladimir Arutunov and Sergey Yalpaev are in 3rd place after Round 6 with DOSAAF. Alexander Tychinskiy is in 5th place with the Tanay Wolves, who battle with Russia's national team in 4-way Women, DZ Grozniy, formerly known as Infra Red Band.

Host Andrey Barabash competes with a local pickup team, Tanaiski Pryanik, and the lineup includes his 8-way team mate Dmitry Samokhval.

Valeriy Gredasov is the only Black Cat member who was not competing in 8-way. He is the youngest and newest Black Cat member after joining the team in 2014, and he is focusing on his challenging inside center job with the three world class 4-way and 8-way competitors.

Black Cat is planning to give Valeriy Gredasov the full slot next year and train more often. He has shared it with Alexander Kvochur since he joined the team and was the alternate at the major events.

He got his first international showing at the 5th Dubai International Parachuting Championship where Black Cat finished in 4th place with a 20.5 average. He was also in the Black Cat lineup at the Paraclete XP Outdoor Championship 2015 (21.8) before Alexander Kvochur helped to win the silver medals at the FAI World Cup 2015.

Valeriy Gredasov was back in the lineup a week later to win his first national gold medal in Kolomna and then traveled to the FAI World Air Games 2015 as the alternate. However, he took the inside center slot from Alexander Kvochur once in Round 10 (11,20,3) and Black Cat finished only one point behind Arizona Airspeed (20 - 19). Now he is on his way to defend the Russian 4-way title successfully...