posted Oct 7th, 2017 - The battle for the 4-way top spot in the United States and the tickets to the FAI World Championships of Formation Skydiving 2018 in Australia was as exciting as it promised to be, and the outcome was still the same as it has been in the past decade. Arizona Airspeed won the 11th consecutive set of USPA gold medals since DeLand Groove in 2006.

However, the situation on the top of the leaderboard was still completely different compared to all previous USPA Nationals.

The USPA Nationals 2017 was the first time that it was not a U.S. team that finished on the top of the Open Class leaderboard. Guest team NMP PCH HayaBusa, reigning indoor and outdoor world champions, invaded U.S. territory successfully, which was recognized and honored by the host and the U.S. teams at the award ceremony.

It was also the first time that a 25+ average was not good enough to win the U.S. title and qualify as the U.S. national team in 4-way Open for the next FAI World Meet. SDC Rhythm XP finished with a new team record 25.2 average after the 10-round meet and still ended up in 2nd place. Airspeed's 25.8 average was the highest qualification result in a year before the next world meet.

USPA Nationals 2017			1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	Total	Avg
Rank	4-way Open		O,4,9	G,21,A,H	N,D,J,14	L,16,12	K,19,6	E,2,10	P,11,15	17,3,22	F,7,1	Q,5,M,20	Total	Avg
2	Arizona Airspeed	US	27	32	29	22	24	22	21	23	29	29	258	25.8
3	SDC Rhythm XP	US	29	31	28	23	22	20	23	19	28	29	252	25.2

SDC Rhythm XP's 25.2 average would have won the qualification at all national championships, except in 2007 (25.3), 2013 (25.5) and 2015 (25.6) when different Airspeed lineups posted slightly higher results.

Airspeed team captain Niklas Hemlin had a Hercules task ahead of him when his new lineup began with training for the USPA Nationals 2017 at the end of last year. New slots had to be assigned after Thomas Hughes left and new member Ari Perelman took the point slot. Mikhail Markine moved from point to tail, Niklas Hemlin from inside to outside center, and Thiago Gomes was the new driving engine.

The new lineup had only one skydiving season to get ready for the toughest challenger in the history of the USPA Nationals. SDC Rhythm XP had a 1-year head start with the current lineup and slot assignments, and earlier results at the Paraclete XP outdoor meet and the FAI World Cup 2017 were showing that the challenger was more than ready to put a lot of pressure on the reigning U.S. champions.

The pressure even grew when Rhythm was on eye level in each round from the very beginning, and there was only a 1-point difference at the end of the first day after Round 7.

U.S. 4-way history between Arizona Airspeed and SDC Rhythm XP since 2007

Niklas Hemlin told the NSL News that his team could really feel the pressure, and they were nervous about the situation. New member Ari Perelman had never been in a pressure situation like this before, and he mastered it successfully at the end of his first Airspeed year.

On the other side, SDC Rhythm XP has now reduced the distance to Arizona Airspeed to the smallest margin in the history of this U.S. top duel that started in 2007. At least this fact and the new team record average were motivating enough to make new plans for the near future.

The current Rhythm lineup has not changed, even not when Airspeed was recruiting for a new member at the end of the 2016 season. The consistent progression is showing that Rhythm is on the right track toward the top position in the U.S.A. and next year's national championships might feature an even more exciting situation on the top of the leaderboard.

Airspeed will be fully aware of the situation and don't need any additional motivation to move forward, as they have an even more challenging task on hand. NMP PCH HayaBusa finished 12 points ahead of the USPA 4-way champion, and the French national 4-way team, RealFly-Sion, have the FAI gold medals as their goal, as well...