posted Oct 20th, 2017 - The FAI Indoor World Meet 2017 lived up to all expectations on the first meet day. Weembi High Rollers challenged NMP PCH HayaBusa to the limits, as it was meant to be.

The meet story is similar compared to the World Challenge 2017 so far, where Weembi took the first lead over the Belgian indoor and outdoor world champions. HayaBusa then struck back by three points in Round 4 in Bedford.

This time, it was Round 5 when the Belgians turned the 1-point deficit after Round 3 into a 5-point lead at the end of the day. Weembi had claimed or tied the highscores for all four rounds before and were hit hard by two flaws in Round 5. Those were costly flaws, as HayaBusa delivered a perfect performance at the same time. Even without the two point deductions, Weembi would have ended up four points behind in Round 5.

The 6-point loss changed the outcome of the first five rounds dramatically, and Weembi has a tough uphill battle coming on Saturday and Sunday, while HayaBusa will have a good night sleep.

FAI Indoor World Meet 2017			1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	Total	Avg
Rank	4-way Open		16,P,12	2,8,H	22,20,3	15,D,4	A,J,6,L	7,M,19	5,Q,21	18,B,17	G,14,C,N	K,E,10,11	F,O,9,E	Total	Avg
1	NMP PCH HayaBusa	BE	30(-2)	29	25	30(-1)	47	-	-	-	-	-	-	161	32.2
2	Weembi High Rollers	FR	30(-1)	29	26	30(-1)	41(-2)	-	-	-	-	-	-	156	31.2
3	Arizona Airspeed	US	29	28	24(-1)	29	41	-	-	-	-	-	-	151	30.2
4	Black Cat	RU	30	27	24	30	39(-1)	-	-	-	-	-	-	150	30.0
5	Qatar Tigers	QA	28(-1)	21(-2)	24	27	36(-2)	-	-	-	-	-	-	136	27.2
6	Echochamber	SE	24(-2)	24(-1)	22	25	34	-	-	-	-	-	-	129	25.8
7	Satori XL	UK	23(-1)	23	21	21(-3)	38	-	-	-	-	-	-	126	25.2
8	Amnesya Fly-In	IT	25	21	18(-2)	23	29(-4)	-	-	-	-	-	-	116	23.2
9	Inlaws	CA	23(-1)	22	17	21	31	-	-	-	-	-	-	114	22.8
10	Papea Spain	ES	24	20(-1)	18(-1)	21	29	-	-	-	-	-	-	112	22.4
11	HF Bad Boys	CZ	21(-1)	20(-1)	17	20(-1)	32(-1)	-	-	-	-	-	-	110	22.0
12	China 4-way Gold	CN	19(-2)	18(-3)	16(-3)	18(-3)	26(-2)	-	-	-	-	-	-	97	19.4
13	Monaco	MC	17(-4)	15(-3)	14(-1)	15(-1)	22(-1)	-	-	-	-	-	-	83	16.6
14	Bahrain	BH	10	13(-1)	11(-1)	11(-3)	17	-	-	-	-	-	-	62	12.4

The four rounds tomorrow, and especially the first ones after half time, will probably feature Weembi with very strong efforts to catch up.

The focus on the duel between NMP PCH HayaBusa and the Weembi High Rollers may take away some of the attention from the very impressive performances behind the two teams on the top of the leaderboard.

Arizona Airspeed and Black Cat are challenging each other for the 3rd place and are both closer to the top teams than it might have been expected. In fact, the Russian national 4-way team tied two highscores and is far above previous meet averages after the first five rounds.

Both teams have been dealing with personnel changes, which makes the performances even more impressive. Airspeed is at the end of the team's first year with this lineup and had to switch back and forth between indoor and outdoor competition.

Black Cat had even less time together with the lineup that competes in Montreal. Vladimir Pavlenko had to replace Evgeny Stashchenko after an injury at the beginning of the 2017 season, and he took his new slot in June. The new Black Cat lineup competed together for the first time at the FAI Outdoor World Cup 2017 and are now in bronze medal contention in Montreal.

Satori XL, with the team's indoor lineup and Katie Woods in the point slot, might be surprised to be that far behind the top spots and finding themselves behind Echochamber from Sweden, despite a 25+ average.

Echochamber has shown the 25+ potential earlier this year on home turf and impresses just as much as the Swedish team in 4-way Women,

Team X. Swedish coach Mattias Nord, former Arcteryx member in Norway, has lifted the performance level of the Swedish delegation significantly.

Amnesya from Italy was planning to be a part of this battle for the positions behind the Top 5 and was hit too hard by penalties. Amnesya is now in the group of four teams who try to finish within the Top 10.

The Bad Boys from the Czech Republic are currently in 11th place, only two points behind Papea from Spain in 10th.

The 4-way Open Class team will resume the competition with Round 6 on Saturday morning at 8:00 am.