posted Aug 19th, 2017 - The NSL News mentioned in a preview for the FAI World Cup 2017 on June 9th that the participation would be the highest one since 1998.

In fact, it became even better compared to the FAI World Cup 1998 where 32 teams competed in Portugal.

The number of teams in 1998 included several teams in 4-way Women who had their first test event before the official integration as a separate category into FAI events. The combination of teams in 4-way Open and 4-way Women in Saarlouis added up to 38 teams, which is the highest number at a world cup in the history of the sport.

The NSL News has once again created a combined leaderboard for all 4-way teams in both categories, and three 4-way Women teams finished in the overall Top 10.

The best team in 4-way Women in 1998 had finished in 10th place (4Pleasure - Sweden), with Australia and Russia right behind in 11th and 12th place (115 - 111 - 108). Sweden eventually won the bronze medal at the first official 4-way Women competition in Spain 2001, four points behind US team Synchroniciy in 1st place (147 - 143).

FAI World Cup 2017			1	2	3	4	Total	Avg
Rank	4-way AAA Class		L,O,F,K,11	C,3,7	13,2,G	1,17,20	Total	Avg
1	NMP PCH HayaBusa	BE	35	26	21	20	102	25.5
2	RealFly-Sion	FR	35	26	20	20	101	25.3
3	SDC Rhythm XP	US	33	24	20	16	93	23.3
4	Black Cat	RU	26	24	17	18	85	21.3
5	French Weembi Girls	FR	29	17	19	16	81	20.3
6	bUSA Defiance	US	26	22	16	17	81	20.3
7	Airbus	DE	27	21	17	15	80	20.0
8	Espoir Saumur Weembi	FR	25	19	16	18	78	19.5
9	Parachute Montreal Fuzion	CA	24	20	16	15	75	18.8
9	Bubble Trouble	RU	23	20	16	14	75	18.8
11	Papea Masculino	ES	26	19	12	14	71	17.8
11	ISR FireFlash	BE	24	18	14	15	71	17.8
11	Barguzin	RU	24	15	17	15	71	17.8
14	Airheads Realfly	CH	24	20	13	13	70	17.5
15	Ex3mo	IT	23	17	12	14	66	16.5
15	Espoir Maubeuge Weembi	FR	24	17	12	13	66	16.5
15	AtomiX YUU	DE	19	19	13	15	66	16.5
18	Chimera	UK	21	16	14	13	64	16.0
18	Kinetix	AU	22	17	13	12	64	16.0
20	Tanay Wolves	RU	22	16	14	11	63	15.8
21	Antimatter	UK	19	14	13	13	59	14.8
22	No Mercy	PL	20	15	10	13	58	14.5
23	NeVa	DE	20	15	11	11	57	14.3
24	Out of the Blue	NL	18	14	12	12	56	14.0
25	Meija	SE	19	14	10	12	55	13.8
26	Team C4	SE	17	14	12	11	54	13.5
27	Flyspot Sky4four	PL	18	14	9	11	52	13.0
27	Eros	UK	16	14	11	11	52	13.0
29	Aurora	SE	15	11	11	11	48	12.0
30	Airvengers	AT	16	12	10	9	47	11.8
31	Tyanno4us Rex	UK	11	11	8	10	40	10.0
31	Atmosfera G4	PT	12	10	9	9	40	10.0
33	PTW	UK	13	9	8	9	39	9.8
34	Yingyang	UA	10	12	9	6	37	9.3
34	TNT	RO	13	11	6	7	37	9.3
36	Tulpar	TR	8	8	9	7	32	8.0
36	Cyprus	CY	12	9	6	5	32	8.0
38	Kesshin	UK	10	7	6	6	29	7.2

The combined leaderboard of the FAI World Cup 2017 considers the results after Round 4. The teams in 4-way Women actually completed five rounds, while two 4-way Open Class teams were not able to make their 5th round due to bad weather on the last day of the competition.

The French Weembi Girls were once again far ahead of the field in 4-way Women, despite a performance below average and expectations. The French national team in this category had missed the gold medals at the FAI Mondial 2016 by seven points with a 21.7 average, which was neither the team's top performance level.

The French Girls came to Saarlouis a year later with the same lineup and finished with a 20.8 average after five rounds. It was still the 5th place on the combined leaderboard, which is impressive enough. However, the French team is aiming at a new and higher performance level to secure the current top position in 4-way Women and bring back the gold medals to France next year in Australia.

France has won three sets of consecutive world meet gold medals in 4-way Women since 2010 and until the Golden Knights stopped this streak last year...