posted Jan 12th, 2018 - Italy has been a solid part of the Formation Skydiving competition world and history. In fact, there has been at least an Italian 4-way team at each FAI World Championship of Formation Skydiving since 1985.

Italian 4-way teams have won bronze medals for their country in 1991 and 2006, and eX3MO's 8-way lineup was one of the very few countries that could even steal an 8-way bronze medal from the three 8-way powerhouses in the world (Unites States - France - Russia) in 2008.

Unfortunately, this clean series of uninterrupted participation of Italian 4-way teams at the world meets is now in jeopardy. It happens at a time when the 4-way competition in Italy is extremely exciting, as the new challenger of the past years, Amnesya FlyIn, is battling with the eX3MO 4-way veterans for the indoor and outdoor top spots in the country.

The Italian skydiving federation is in deep trouble, while the teams continue to raise the performance level and prepare for this year's road to the FAI World Meet 2018 in Australia.

FAI World Meet 2006			1	2	3	4	5	Total	Avg
Rank	4-way Open		N,20,16	K,J,C,G,3	D,19,B,6	L,14,10	F,17,M,2	Total	Avg
1	DeLand Fire	US	20	27	25	17	28	117	23.4
2	Gap Nice Icarius Autrement	FR	17	25	23	21	25	111	22.2
3	Sinapsi PD	IT	19	26	22	19	24	110	22.0
4	Sky Panthers Barkli	RU	21	23	23	17	25	109	21.8
5	Arcteryx	NO	18	25	21	17	24	105	21.0
6	Spa HayaBusa	BE	19	25	18	17	23	102	20.4
7	EADS	DE	17	23	20	16	18	94	18.8
8	Danez	DK	15	22	15	17	21	90	18.0
9	Spain	ES	16	18	17	14	19	84	16.8
9	Evolution	CA	15	14	19	14	22	84	16.8
11	Team 42	SE	13	20	17	14	17	81	16.2
11	British Army	UK	14	21	16	12	18	81	16.2
13	Voodoo	ZA	15	20	15	12	18	80	16.0
14	Punky Fish	NL	16	13	17	14	19	79	15.8
15	Airtite	AU	12	17	17	13	17	76	15.2
16	FILA	AT	13	16	16	12	17	74	14.8
17	Japan	JP	12	18	14	12	15	71	14.2
18	CTR Optimum	BR	13	14	14	12	17	70	14.0
19	Sky Service	CZ	12	16	13	11	14	66	13.2
20	Lithuania	LT	9	14	11	9	8	51	10.2
21	New Zealand	NZ	10	11	11	7	11	50	10.0
22	Kazakhstan	KZ	8	6	7	6	13	40	8.0
23	Estonia	EE	4	7	7	7	9	34	6.8
24	Ireland	IE	6	6	7	4	6	29	5.8
25	Cyprus	CY	3	7	7	5	4	26	5.2

Italian 4-way Open Class participation at FAI World Championships of Formation Skydiving since 1985

The Italian AeroClub is sanctioning any participation at FAI events, including Formation Skydiving competition.

The organization is currently dealing with serious internal political and administrative problems, which keep it from conducting operational work, including the sanctioning procedures.

In December last year, Amnesya was asking the Italian AeroClub to register the team for the FAI European Indoor Cup 2018 in Norway. The application was rejected due to the dysfunctional situation within the federation.

This week, the Italian AeroClub posted officially that there will be no national championships this year.

No team from Italy will be sanctioned to attend any FAI events "due to the lack of government in the institution". This statement applies to all aeronautic sports in Italy, not only to skydiving competition.

FAI World Meet 2008			1	2	3	4	5	6	7	Total	Avg
Rank	AAA Class		17,P,4	H,13,7	6,M,1	9,22,C	16,J,8	K,F,G,18	O,Q,5,12	Total	Avg
1	Maubeuge	FR	23	18	26	22	22	24	16	151	21.6
2	USA	US	18	18	26	21	22	19	16	140	20.0
3	Ex3mo	IT	20	16	22	17	18	18	15	126	18.0
4	EADS	DE	21	14	20	15	16	14	14	114	16.3
5	Connextion	UK	15	12	15	13	14	13	12	94	13.4
6	Belgium	BE	14	11	16	11	14	14	12	92	13.1
7	South Africa	ZA	14	9	16	12	13	11	-	75	12.5
8	Spain	ES	13	6	13	10	13	13	-	68	11.3
9	Australia	AU	11	5	10	9	9	7	-	51	8.5

The void of FAI sanctioning in Italy does not only make it difficult or impossible for the national teams to prepare for the outdoor world meet in Australia and the indoor world cup in Bahrain this year.

The situation will also not be very encouraging for any Italian teams who were planning to compete at national championships.

Italian skydivers are now considering a possible solution by creating a new skydiving federation that would govern itself and work together directly with the Federation Aeronautique Internationale (FAI). Germany went through a similar situation years ago and created the well established Deutscher Fallschirmsport Verband (DFV) for the same purpose.

However, the Italian National Olympic Committee (CONI) already indicated that it would not recognize another new federation for Italian air sports, as it is currently in the process of reducing the number of sports federations in Italy.

Amesya is still hoping that the hosts of the FAI events will eventually agree with FAI's International Parachuting Commission (IPC) to invite teams from Italy, despite the internal political aero sports crisis in the country. Amnesya, eX3MO and other Italian teams would probably be able to organize their own qualification events...