posted May 20th, 2017 - The Sun Path Products NSL News covered the Russian 8-way team Tanay with the story on 6 May 2017 and took a closer look at the history of 8-way Formation Skydiving competition at the same time.

The 8-way update offered the opportunity to follow up with a similar analysis of the 4-way Open Class event, which was modernized at the same time. The new set of rules and dive pools were introduced at the World Meet 1985 in Mali Losinj, former Yugoslavia, and Formation Skydiving competition celebrated its 40-year anniversary at the FAI Mondial 2016.

The 8-way history since 1985 has been dominated by the three main Formation Skydiving powerhouses in the world: USA, France and Russia. Only Canada (1985) and Italy (2008) were other nations who ever won a set of medals.

The situation is quite different in the 4-way Open event. USA, France and Russia have surely collected the most sets of medals in this event, as well. However, there are significantly more other nations that have placed in the medal rankings in the same 40 years.

FAI World Meet 1985			1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	Total	Avg
Rank	4-way Open		TBD	TBD	TBD	TBD	TBD	TBD	TBD	TBD	TBD	TBD	Total	Avg
1	DeLand Air Bears	US	12	14	13	11	11	11	11	11	12	12	118	11.8
2	Canada	CA	12	12	8	11	10	11	12	11	11	14	112	11.2
3	France	FR	12	11	9	11	10	10	11	11	11	13	109	10.9
4	Australia	AU	11	12	10	11	10	4	11	10	11	14	104	10.4
5	Austria	AT	12	13	8	11	6	11	11	6	12	12	102	10.2
6	New Zealand	NZ	10	12	5	10	9	9	9	9	10	12	95	9.5
7	Italy	IT	10	10	10	9	9	10	10	5	10	11	94	9.4
8	Great Britain	UK	8	6	10	8	8	8	9	10	11	11	89	8.9
9	Denmark	DK	9	9	6	9	9	8	7	7	9	11	84	8.4
10	Finland	FI	4	11	9	6	9	9	9	7	9	8	81	8.1
11	Russia	RU	8	10	5	9	7	6	8	8	9	10	80	8.0
12	Switzerland	CH	10	9	7	5	9	8	8	9	3	10	78	7.8
13	Sweden	SE	8	9	8	7	8	5	6	8	9	9	77	7.7
14	Belgium	BE	8	8	6	9	4	8	6	7	8	10	74	7.4
15	Germany	DE	8	4	7	9	8	7	7	7	8	7	72	7.2
16	Norway	NO	6	8	7	8	7	8	5	7	8	5	69	6.9
17	Netherlands	NL	6	8	6	7	6	7	7	7	7	6	67	6.7
18	Spain	ES	6	2	5	5	5	6	5	5	7	6	52	5.2
19	Czech Republic	CZ	3	4	4	5	5	5	5	5	5	6	47	4.7
20	Yugoslavia	YU	3	5	2	4	5	5	5	4	4	6	43	4.3

In fact, it happened only three times that the same three nations swept the 4-way podium at the 17 world meets since 1985, while the national 8-way teams of USA, France and Russia have won all sets of FAI medals 15 times.

Teams from Norway (1999, 2001, 2003), Canada (1985, 2014), Italy (1991, 2006), Denmark (1993, 1995), Austria (1987) and South Africa (1997) stole sets of medals from the three powerhouses before Belgium's 4-way team NMP PCH HayaBusa began to build a new FS powerhouse in itself.

In fact, Belgium has dominated the recent 4-way world with bronze medals in 2008, silver in 2012 and gold in 2014 and 2016.

Most of the times, it was only the 4-way bronze medal position that was left available for any other teams. The US and French national teams had their hands on the two top spots at the 11 world meets between 1991 and 2010. Canada's 4-way team of 1985, which was a part of the 8-way lineup, won silver in 1985, and Russia placed 2nd in 1989. The rest were bronze medals until 2010.

4-way medal winners at all FAI world meets since 1985

Menzelinsk 2010 was the third and last time that USA, France and Russia divided the FAI 4-way medals between each other. Belgium became the third country in the 4-way history to win silver medals in Dubai 2012. The NMP PCH HayaBusa era had begun.

The HayaBusa gold medals in 2014 were the deserved reward for a long journey of the three original members, Roy Janssen, David and Andy Grauwels, and the current lineup with the Grauwels brothers, Dennis Praet and Jeroen Nollet defended the Belgian gold successfully two years later.

The FAI World Meet 2014 in Prostejov was also special in another way. It became the first time in 4-way history that USA and France were not both in the medal rankings. The French national 4-way Open Class team ended up in 4th place, while Belgium and Canada were on the podium. The USA have never missed the 4-way podium yet since 1985, while France went home empty-handed only once in 2014.

The FAI Mondial 2016 brought another very new experience for USA and France. Their 4-way teams had never seen another team in the gold medal spot on the podium than the usual opponent. Then Arizona Airspeed had to look up and see Belgians in the top position in 2014, and Airspeed and RealFly-Sion both saw the same picture in 2016...