posted Dec 25th, 2017 - The Christmas holidays and the change of the year are usually slower times in Formation Skydiving competition, even despite the constantly increasing number of indoor events.

The NSL News has an opportunity to go deeper back into the archives and add events and stories of times before the current version of the SKYLEAGUE.COM website.

Yesterday's update with information of the NSL Championship at SkyQuest 2002 related to a time when four U.S. top teams battled for the one top spot and the status of the U.S. national team in 4-way Open.

Three of the same four teams eventually won the USPA Nationals at a time, while Geneses/PD Blue never made it to the very top, even though Shannon Pilcher and Ian Bobo became 4-way world champions in 2006 with DeLand Fire.

Airspeed Vertical competed for the U.S. delegation in Spain 2001 and was dethroned by the Golden Knights at the USPA Nationals 2002 who competed for the U.S.A. in Gap 2003. DeLand Majik then won the national championships later the same year and FAI gold medals in Rijeka 2004.

Shamrock Showdown 2002			1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	Total	Avg
Rank	AAA Class		12,H,2	J,L,G,D,P	6,Q,C,B	K,N,7,16	F,A,14,M	5,13,15	18,3,10	9,19,18	17,4,22	11,O,21	Total	Avg
1	DeLand Majik	US	19	34	31	23	22	20	17	21	18	21	226	22.6
2	Airspeed Vertical	US	19	34	28	24	23	19	17	19	19	21	223	22.3
3	Sebastian XL	UK	17	27	22	20	23	16	14	17	17	18	191	19.1
4	Sinapsi PD	IT	14	27	18	21	21	14	14	17	15	17	178	17.8
5	Punky Fish	NL	14	24	21	16	17	13	11	14	13	13	156	15.6
6	Phenix	SE	14	19	19	17	17	11	13	6	14	14	144	14.4
7	Blue Eye Majik	US	11	23	14	19	14	10	11	14	12	14	142	14.2
8	Space Center Teiwaz	US	12	18	18	12	10	13	11	14	9	15	132	13.2
9	Jetstream	US	11	15	15	13	13	10	11	12	11	11	122	12.2
10	Superfly	US	11	15	12	11	10	9	10	11	7	11	107	10.7
11	TBD	US	5	14	9	9	12	8	4	10	9	8	88	8.8

The NSL Championship 2001 was a part of the transition from Airspeed's 4-way dominance to the most successful era of teams from Skydive DeLand. The event was the first competition for DeLand Majik, even though the complete lineup was not available. DeLand Norgies' Lise Aune filled in for Gary Smith.

The Golden Knights ended up behind Majik at the new DeLand team's very promising start in November 2001. Majik followed up well at the Shamrock Showdown 2002 where they also outscored the reigning 4-way world champions of 2001, Arizona Airspeed Vertical.

However, neither the reigning world champions from Arizona nor the new DeLand Majik challenger were able to stop the Golden Knights from winning at the USPA Nationals 2002. The U.S. Army team then won FAI silver medals for the U.S. delegation in Gap 2003.

Yesterday's update included the 2001 meet videos of the NSL Championship, which featured the complete 4-way dive pool at that time. There were 24 blocks and 16 random formations, and even the eleven rounds at Fantasy of Flight were not enough to exhaust the 2001 dive pool. Some of the blocks were also different compared to the current dive pool.

The teams had different techniques how to deal with double slot switchers (Block 5, Block 17), and the two videos of DeLand Majik and Golden Knights demonstrate some examples. DeLand Majik mirror-imaged the sequences page by page and avoided A- and B-slots in both pieces that way. The Golden Knights switched slots within the pieces page by page, which is currently most popular.

Both ways obviously worked well. The Golden Knights won the USPA Nationals in 2002 with their new technique, and DeLand Majik became 4-way world champions two years later.

USPA Nationals 2002		1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	Total	Avg
Rank	4-way Open	B,12,2	K,6,4	20,5,13	D,Q,11,18	N,3,9	A,21,16	22,H,L,J	G,C,7,15	E,19,17	10,P,M,8	Total	Avg
1	Golden Knights	19	21	19	21	29	22	23	23	22	19	218	21.8
2	Arizona Airspeed	19	22	18	21	26	22	22	21	23	21	215	21.5
3	DeLand Majik	19	19	20	20	24	22	23	24	22	19	212	21.2
4	Golden Knights Black	15	17	16	17	20	17	20	20	19	16	177	17.7
5	Airspeed Zulu	17	18	14	17	22	15	18	17	17	16	171	17.1
6	Cross Keys Fluid	16	16	13	15	18	16	15	13	15	15	152	15.2
7	DeLand Frost	15	16	12	13	17	15	17	17	14	13	149	14.9
8	Ranch Tribe	14	14	13	13	17	11	16	10	15	13	136	13.6
9	Elsinore Adrenaline	13	13	12	13	16	11	15	13	15	13	134	13.4
10	Synchronicity	12	12	10	12	17	13	13	15	12	12	128	12.8
11	Untrained Eye	12	12	11	13	14	10	11	9	12	11	115	11.5
12	Team Kruegeraand	8	8	6	5	6	7	6	7	8	5	66	6.6