posted Jan 13th, 2018 - The 8-way situation in Germany was the topic of the NSL News story on 8 January 2018. Most of the times, there has been a direct connection between 8-way and 4-way in Germany in the past, which could be different this year. The two top contenders, reigning champion Airbus and challenger AtomiX YUU, both focus only on 4-way competition in 2018.

The situation is similar to Italy's 4-way competition on the top level, where Amnesya FlyIn has been putting serious pressure on the 4-way champions of the past years, eX3MO. There is a major difference though, as yesterday's update explained. National 4-way team Airbus is confirmed to compete for Germany in Australia, while the situation in Italy is currently very confusing for the teams.

Italy held the country's first national indoor championships last year, which qualified Amnesya to compete for Italy at the FAI Indoor World Meet 2017. Germany did not have a team in Montreal.

This may change at the next FAI indoor events, as the German skydiving federation (DFV) has now scheduled the first national indoor championships.

Belgian Indoor Nationals 2017			1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	Total	Avg
Rank	AAA Class		0,3,18	22,14,N	Q,2,B,E	L,A,F,19	P,4,H,5	9,10,8	6,13,16	K,G,17,C	21,J,1	15,20,12	Total	Avg
1	Amnesya	IT	21	17	26	30	27	21	18	32	20	15	227	22.7
2	Airbus	DE	19	18	26	29	26	18	17	30	19	17	219	21.9
3	ISR FireFlash	BE	20	18	27	23	22	18	17	26	20	16	207	20.7
4	JETMAX	BE	17	16	24	26	17	17	17	16	19	15	184	18.4
5	Ludo's Pinkcakes Deluxe	BE	13	12	22	21	18	15	14	18	16	11	160	16.0
6	Just 4 Fun	DE	12	12	17	19	14	12	11	16	14	11	138	13.8

Unfortunately, the indoor competition in Bottrop collides with the date of the World Challenge 2018, which makes it impossible for the German 4-way top teams to attend the most popular indoor competition in Bedford and difficult for all other teams to make a choice.

However, both German top contenders are planning to attend the new indoor championship, which creates the first confrontation between Airbus and AtomiX much earlier in the year than before, when it happened only at the national outdoor championships.

Both teams are not very experienced with indoor meets. In fact, AtomiX has not yet attended an indoor competition with the current lineup, and Airbus just competed for the first time at the Belgian Nationals 2017.

Airbus had a good start into the indoor 4-way world with a 21.9 average in 2nd place behind Amnesya and ahead of ISR FireFlash.

The NSL News story on 23 December 2017 had explained that the tall German lineup had enough space at Fly-In's 16-foot chamber. The German Indoor Nationals 2018 will take place at a 14-foot chamber in Bottrop.

German Nationals 2017		1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	Total	Avg
Rank	AAA/Open Class	P,D,3,16	13,14,9	F,11,N,2	J,7,5	17,14,M	B,8,18	22,Q,O,20	K,10,15	E,1,G,6	A,L,19,21	Total	Avg
1	Airbus FSZ Saar	19	16	20	22	20	17	17	15	18	20	184	18.4
2	AtomiX YUU Skydive	18	15	18	22	18	16	17	15	18	19	176	17.6
3	NeVa FSZ SAAR	16	12	16	17	17	12	12	12	14	15	143	14.3
3	Dark Energy	16	13	13	17	15	13	15	12	15	14	143	14.3
5	SKYNAMITE	16	12	15	17	15	13	13	13	14	14	142	14.2
6	Skyfall Illertissen	15	11	12	17	13	12	13	11	13	14	131	13.1
7	Paranodon Eyjafjallajökull	11	11	14	15	12	12	14	12	13	13	127	12.7
8	Skyweed	14	9	13	14	15	12	12	10	13	13	125	12.5
9	Wolf Pack	14	11	12	11	12	12	12	10	14	14	122	12.2
10	FlashFour - Soest	8	10	12	12	12	9	12	10	13	10	108	10.8
11	HorschD FSZ SAAR	10	7	11	10	9	9	7	7	12	12	94	9.4
12	4 xmpl	8	8	11	8	10	8	9	7	8	10	87	8.7
13	Jump	8	8	10	9	6	8	10	6	7	9	81	8.1

AtomiX will have at least a size advantage at the smaller flying chamber, even though the team has no indoor competition experience so far.

Of course, AtomiX has been using the indoor opportunities for training purposes as regularly as most other outdoor teams. In fact, AtomiX has scheduled a total of approx. ten hours of indoor training for the 2018 season. Team speaker Peter Ingenhaag said that 2-2 camps with NMP PCH HayaBusa members are once again a part of the indoor training.

AtomiX also plans to complete 300 to 350 training jumps, and Luc Verstrepen will continue to work with the team. The German challenger is aiming at the 19-average benchmark, which would be well within striking distance to the 4-way top spot in Germany.

AtomiX and Airbus will actually meet three times this year, as both teams also have the ESL Championship 2018 on the meet agenda. The German Indoor Nationals 2018 will be the first showdown, and both teams will probably try to complete as much indoor training as possible before the April date...