posted Nov 27th, 2017 - One of the most recent 4-way competitions was a part of the 18th Asiania International Parachuting Championships 2017, which took place in China this year.

The FAI affiliated Asiania Parachute Federation is hosting the event annually for countries in the Asian and Australasian areas.

Six 4-way teams competed in China last week, and the scheduled 10-round meet was concluded after Round 8.

One of the six teams is well known in the international Formation Skydiving community, and the world class team from Qatar, the Tigers, had no problem at all to win the gold medals, with China's national 4-way team placing 2nd.

Both teams had also competed just a few weeks ago at the FAI Indoor World Meet 2017 in Montreal, while the Asiania was an outdoor competition.

The Qatar Tigers had filled the time period between the event in Canada and the trip to China with some outdoor training at Skydive City in Florida to switch back to the outdoor environment.

FAI Indoor World Meet 2017			1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	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	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	29	41	32	27	31	35	26	302	30.2
4	Black Cat	RU	30	27	24	30	39	34	32	28	33	25	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 Tigers had attended four consecutive indoor events in the past 12 months, and the team's last outdoor competition was the FAI Mondial 2016. The Tigers were used to switch back and forth between indoor and outdoor competition until the outdoor break came by surprise at the end of the 2016 season.

The Qatar Tigers are back in outdoor action now, and it was a difficult re-start into 4-way outdoor competition in China, even though there was no serious challenger for the world class team.

The jump plane was a Pilatus Porter with the exit door on the right side, which created the most difficult part of the competition for the Tigers.

It was impossible to maintain Qatar's outdoor scoring level, as the combination of exit and sub-terminal page from the right-hand door was very time-consuming.

The lack of exit experience from a Pilatus Porter also forced the Tigers to launch a Star (M) for each round, which added to the loss of working time for the actual sequences.

The Tigers had finished in 5th place with a 22.6 average at the last world meet and had to accept a significantly lower meet average in China as a result of the jump plane situation at the Asiania.

Asiania 2017			1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	Total	Avg
Rank	AAA Class		P,10,19	8,1,2	G,13,15	21,Q,12	5,11,9	L,4,17	20,3,14	D,F,M,C,O	Total	Avg
1	Qatar Tigers	QA	18	15	14	17	17	20	15	40	156	19.5
2	China	CN	11	10	11	13	10	10	11	29	105	13.1
3	Indonesia	ID	5	8	3	8	9	10	6	15	64	8.0
4	Oman	OM	7	7	2	7	6	8	7	6	50	6.3
5	Myanmar	MM	1	2	1	1	0	0	1	0	6	0.8
6	Malaysia	MY	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0.0

There was still at least one reward for the Qatar Tigers for the trip to China and the first outdoor competition after a 1-year break. Round 8 brought a Super Sequence of five random formations (D,F,M,C,O) to all teams, and the Tigers could take advantage of the situation with a new team record number, despite the jump plane situation.

The 40-pointer is the highest score that the team has posted at any indoor or outdoor meets. The 39-pointer at the Wind Games 2017 (L,N,7,9) was the highest number so far at an indoor competition. The highest outdoor score was the 36-pointer in Round 8 (L,M,K,7) at the FAI Mondial 2016.

The Tigers will now take a break and then resume fully in January with the preparations for the FAI World Meet 2018 in Australia. Coach Jérémie Rollett has several competitions on the 2018 schedule for the Qatar team, including Wind Games, Shamrock Showdown and French Indoor Nationals, and he may add even more meets to the 2018 agenda.

It's a long year coming for all national teams, as the world meet is scheduled for mid-October...