posted Oct 29th, 2017 - There was a 4-way Open Class battle at the FAI Indoor World Meet 2017 that was even more exciting, at least closer, than the showdown between NMP PCH HayaBusa and Weembi High Rollers. In fact, Arizona Airspeed and Black Cat needed an extra round to break their tie after Round 10.

The NSL News mentioned in the last preview before Round 1 that "the teams will still be missing the fastest sequence of the meet, which was drawn for the extra round" and that "there is hope for a fly-off though, as the 4-way Open Class field is tight enough in the medal rankings for a chance to see the fast sequence in Round 11".

The 4-way Open Class competition for the medal positions turned out to be close enough, and even NMP PCH HayaBusa and Weembi High Rollers might have needed an extra round without Weembi's devastating Round 5. However, Arizona Airspeed and Black Cat eventually ended up tied for the bronze medals after Round 10 and could offer the audience the eye candy of the Super Sequence in Round 11.

The sequence (F,O,9,E) was not fast enough to beat the 66-pointer that Perris Fury had posted in Round 2 (J,M,E,D,L) of the World Challenge 2010. Arizona Airspeed's bronze medal winning 59-pointer is still the new official FAI/IPC indoor world record for a single round.

Airspeed's best rounds though came after a similar meltdown as Weembi High Rollers had it in Round 5. Airspeed and Black Cat were locked into their bronze medal battle from the beginning, and there was only a 1-point advantage for the Russian national team after Round 6.

Airspeed then lost five points to Black Cat in Round 7, and the 6-point difference was even worse than Weembi's 5-point deficit after Round 5. Airspeed had only three rounds left for their own uphill battle, while Weembi had all five rounds of the second half to catch up with HayaBusa.

Airspeed is famous for great recovery skills and managed once again to eliminate the 6-point distance to the bronze medal position. The U.S. team got some help from Black Cat though who collected five penalties in the three most important rounds, after only one point deduction in the first seven rounds.

Both teams performed also on eye level in the extra round and almost ended up tied one more time after three penalties each.

Airspeed won the bronze medals with four consecutive winning rounds over Black Cat, while the Russian team posted the first 30+ average on a significantly higher scoring level than ever before in Russian 4-way history.

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	29	25	30	47	33	34	34	37	28	-	327	32.7
2	Weembi High Rollers	FR	30	29	26	30	41	35	32	32	37	28	-	320	32.0
3	Arizona Airspeed	US	29	28	24(-1)	29	41	32(-2)	27(-3)	31(-1)	35	26(-3)	59(-3)	302	30.2
4	Black Cat	RU	30	27	24	30	39(-1)	34	32	28(-2)	33(-1)	25(-2)	58(-3)	302	30.2
5	Qatar Tigers	QA	28	21	24	27	36	31	23	27	29	26	-	272	27.2
6	Satori XL	UK	23	23	21	21	38	29	25	26	32	23	-	261	26.1
6	Echochamber	SE	24	24	22	25	34	28	27	28	28	21	-	261	26.1
8	Amnesya Fly-In	IT	25	21	18	23	29	28	24	22	31	20	-	241	24.1
9	Papea Spain	ES	24	20	18	21	29	26	23	21	26	20	-	228	22.8
10	Inlaws	CA	23	22	17	21	31	28	20	20	22	18	-	222	22.2
11	HF Bad Boys	CZ	21	20	17	20	32	21	22	21	23	22	-	219	21.9
12	China 4-way Gold	CN	19	18	16	18	26	22	19	18	22	20	-	198	19.8
13	Monaco	MC	17	15	14	15	22	21	19	15	21	17	-	176	17.6
14	Bahrain	BH	10	13	11	11	17	19	12	8	16	12	-	129	12.9

The results in Montreal are creating an interesting situation for the 2018 outdoor season, which will conclude with the FAI World Meet in Australia. NMP PCH HayaBusa, Arizona Airspeed and Black Cat will also represent their countries at the outdoor world meet, while France will send RealFly-Sion to Australia.

Both teams competed with lineups in Montreal that have spent much less time together compared to the indoor and outdoor world champions from Belgium, who are coming to the completion of their third year with Jeroen Nollet in the tail slot. This explains easily why HayaBusa is far ahead of both teams at this point in time, at least at indoor meets.

The French national outdoor team in 4-way Open demonstrated at the FAI World Cup 2017 in Saarlouis that the outdoor world champions are not completely out of reach, and there is still officially only a 1-point difference posted after Round 4.

RealFly-Sion, Arizona Airspeed and Black Cat have a whole year to move closer to the Belgians who would like to win their third consecutive set of gold medals in 4-way Open.

HayaBusa is fully aware of this situation and has skipped 8-way training and competition for the 2018 season, while the Black Cat members are also busy with Tanay's 8-way team. RealFly-Sion and Airspeed focus only on 4-way and have the same gold medals as their goal that HayaBusa wants to win...