posted Feb 20th, 2018 - The NSL News reported the exciting battle for the last three spots within the Top 10 at the Wind Games 2018 with the story on 2 February 2018 and followed up a day later with the changes and final standings at the end of the meet.

The Swedish team Echochamber was a part of this 3-team battle and finished once again well within the international Top 10, where Sweden has been established since Gryttjom Volo's 5th place at the FAI Indoor World Meet 2015. Volo discontinued after the internal Swedish duel with Echochamber at the FAI Indoor World Cup 2016 and left the field in Sweden for Echochamber after the 24.8 average and another 5th place in Poland.

Echochamber has taken the Swedish 4-way reign ever since, and former Arcteryx and Volo member Mattias Nord has been coaching the new Swedish top team to a 26+ average level.

Echochamber would have placed in 6th place of an indoor world meet ranking at the Wind Games, where three French teams placed ahead of the Swedish team, including the French Weembi Girls who will compete in 4-way Women at FAI/IPC events. However, Amnesya from Italy, Airheads from Switzerland and UK team Satori XL will make it very challenging to maintain this position in the international Top 10.

Wind Games 2018			1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	Total	Avg
Rank	AAA Class		K,5,4	12,8,M	19,2,17	P,C,F,16	D,B,9,N	22,21,13	3,14,11	G,L,E,Q,10	6,20,H	A,O,18,1	Total	Avg
1	NMP-PCH Hayabusa	BE	31	26	27	46	54	23	24	38	31	32	332	33.2
2	Arizona Airspeed	US	29	26	27	41	51	24	24	35	31	28	316	31.6
3	Realfly Sion	FR	29	24	27	42	45	22	23	35	29	28	304	30.4
4	Qatar Tigers	QA	27	25	25	42	41	19	20	30	28	27	284	28.4
5	French Weembi Girls	FR	27	23	25	39	47	19	20	30	27	25	282	28.2
6	IFS-Moscow	RU	25	22	23	39	44	21	23	30	28	24	279	27.9
7	Gavroche Weembi	FR	25	21	24	40	42	17	20	31	27	27	274	27.4
8	Echochamber	SE	28	22(-1)	23	40	41(-2)	17(-2)	21	26(-3)	27(-1)	22(-2)	267(-11)	26.7
9	Amnesya	IT	24(-2)	22	20	40	40(-2)	17(-2)	20	29	28	26	266(-6)	26.6
10	Airheads	CH	26(-1)	22(-1)	24	37(-2)	47	17(-2)	19(-1)	26(-3)	22(-3)	22(-5)	262(-18)	26.2

Echochamber followed up with another 26+ average two weeks after the Wind Games at the national championships in Sweden, naturally without much competition since Volo left the Swedish 4-way world.

However, Echochamber is now working with coach Mattias Nord to make the next step and finish even higher in the international rankings. The team will compete again in eight weeks at the European indoor championships and will use the newest meet experiences.

The coach will put the pieces together, and Echochamber is going to train hard in the coming weeks, not including Blocks 1 and 13 this time.

Team speaker Ulf Liljenbäck recalled an interesting situation at the Wind Games:

"The day before the competition started we saw the French Girls practice Block 13. What’s up with that??!! At an FAI event in a 14-foot tunnel Blocks 1 and 13 are taken out of the draw. Well, this was not a FAI event and the two blocks stayed in the hat when the draw was done. We hadn't done those two blocks since we visited France a year ago. Both blocks where drawn..."

Swedish Indoor Nationals 2018		1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	Total	Avg
Rank	AAA Class	B,8,H,A	O,18,21	L,12,E,9	15,3,Q	C,22,5	10,M,16	J,14,6	N,D,P,20	4,2,K	G,11,19	Total	Avg
1	Echochamber	36(-1)	23(-1)	26(-1)	21(-2)	23(-1)	26	26(-1)	34	25(-1)	23	263(-8)	26.3
2	Team X	27	20	23	21	19	23	21	25	23	18	220	22.0
3	Edge	20	19	21	18	19	21	21	22	18	16	195	19.5
4	Penguins of the Sky	18	14	15	14	13	16	17	17	12	14	150	15.0
5	A3	17	14	15	14	12	10	14	18	14	11	139	13.9

He said that his team focused on the mental game at the indoor nationals:

"It helped us to make less mistakes and we also handled the hiccups better. We will continue working on that part along with everything else. With me being sick with the flu, Martin suffering from an allergic shock from Saturday and both Johan and Rikard competing in both VFS and FS4 we held nine of the ten rounds together, and that is very promising looking ahead to an intense season 2018."

The all-female Cumulonimbus lineup had no competition in the national AA Class competition and thus set their own goals.

It was the first indoor competition for the team, and goal became the 13.7 winning average at last year's national indoor championships, posted by the Penguins of the Sky who moved up into the AAA Class for the 2018 national championships. Team member Kajsa-Stina Gustafsson said that this was still enough pressure to create a challenging meet environment:

"We were still nervous, but overall we remained calm and steady."

High-fives and encouraging words everywhere and to everyone helped to handle the situation: "At the end of the day we ended up with a 15.1 average and were more than satisfied."

Swedish Indoor Nationals 2018		1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	Total	Avg
Rank	AA Class	11,D,F	2,B,19	Q,K,22	4,O,P	6,18	14,21	A,9,20	L,7,M	15,G,E	8,C,N	Total	Avg
1	Cumulonimbus	17	14	14	16	13	12	14	21	14	16	151	15.1
Rank	A Class	9,N	C,G,4	M,21	D,Q,A	B,H,F	O,P,8	2,E	K,L,19	J,6	7,N	Total	Avg
1	Team Pegasus	16	12	14	15	21	11	10	10	13	12	134	13.4
2	Blyknektarna	15	11	13	12	18	10	11	8	11	12	121	12.1
3	SnowFlake	10	5	11	11	14	7	4	7	10	10	89	8.9

There was more competition in the A Class, where three Swedish teams competed for the national title. The winner, Team Pegasus, was a combination of two Cirkus Cirrus members (Jesper Hansson, Leonel Bylund) who had won A Class indoor and outdoor silver medals at the Swedish national championships in 2017. Jesper Hansson and Leonel Bylund joined forces with with Danuta Hedlund and Didrik Lind to launch Team Pegasus.

Danuta Hedlund and Didrik Lind are both new to 4-way competition, and Didrik Lind just started jumping last year.

The new team won eight of the ten rounds, while Blyknektarna was still closely behind in almost each round. Team Pegasus beat last year's A Class winning average, as well, and the team was happy, as Leonel Bylund explained: "We were aiming at flying calmly without stressing ourselves, and we managed to keep it all the way through, which we are incredibly happy with."

SnowFlake was another new A Class team who had planned to compete in the Rookie Class. They moved up into the A Class competition when no other teams signed up in the Rookie Class. SnowFlake trained the A Class blocks for the first time in January, and they were all included in the 10-round competition.