posted Mar 19th, 2018 - The aftermath of the Shamrock Showdown 2018 continues with a live interview that was recorded after the award ceremony.

Team members of the four top teams on the final leaderboard took some extra time to provide a short summary of their performances at Skydive DeLand. Sophia Pecout of the Aerodyne Weembi Girls provided feedback for her team, Kevin Mansion for the French 4-way Open Class team Aerodyne Realfly.

Steve Lefkowitz explained SDC Rhythm XP's situation after the first outdoor confrontation in 2018 with Arizona Airspeed, and Niklas Hemlin spoke for the U.S. 4-way champions.

All four world class competitors agreed that the competition draw was not a fast one, even if it first may have looked so. The first five rounds had a random formation at the beginning of the sequence, which usually allows the teams to score slightly higher, compared to a block after the exit. Two more sequences had the same start, while three rounds required the teams to master any of the blocks out the door. Only one sequence began with with piece-flying, Block 21 in Round 8.

Shamrock Showdown 2018			1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	Total	Avg
Rank	AAA Class		B,J,17,20	M,10,O,3	Q,22,2	A,D,P,F,16	N,12,14	15,9,C	K,4,G,E	21,1,13	7,6,11	H,5,19	Total	Avg
1	Arizona Airspeed	US	28(-1)	26	24	34(-1)	21	29(-2)	31	20(-1)	23	28	264(-5)	26.4
2	SDC Rhythm XP	US	27	23	23	33(-1)	18	27	29	20	23	25	248(-1)	24.8
3	Aerodyne Realfly	FR	27	24(-1)	21(-1)	28(-4)	17	28	31(-1)	19	23	27	245(-7)	24.5
4	Aerodyne Weembi Girls	FR	26(-1)	23	21(-1)	33(-1)	15(-2)	26	27	19	22	23(-1)	235(-6)	23.5
5	Qatar Tigers	QA	25	23	22	29(-2)	17	25	26(-2)	18	21	23	229(-4)	22.9
6	FL Defiance	US	16	14(-1)	8(-4)	15(-3)	12	16	16(-1)	13	15(-1)	15	140(-10)	14.0
7	SCZ ZEUS	US	12	12(-2)	12	12(-1)	9(-1)	12	13	11	11	10(-1)	114(-5)	11.4
8	Adventure Flyers	PY	11	11	9	14	9	11	10(-1)	6(-1)	9	10	100(-2)	10.0

The new Airspeed lineup has not posted a score below 20 points for any outdoor sequence since June 2017, including three jumps with 3-block sequences. Round 8 at the USPA Nationals 2017 had a fast start with Block 17 for the exit maneuver, while the two 3-block sequences in Round 8 and Round 9 at the Shamrock Showdown began with more challenging blocks.

Even the point deduction in Round 8 did not push Airspeed back below 20 points in the new lineup's whole 3-block history so far, despite the slowest sequence of the competition.

Only one of the five point deductions in DeLand was caused by Airspeed videographer David French, who was filming his team for the first time from a Cessna Caravan. Judges Claire King and Dirk Venter mentioned that many of the point deductions were caused by video angles after the exit, and the experiences will be helpful for the teams to clean up before traveling to Australia.

Aerodyne Realfly collected a total of seven penalties, six of them in the first four rounds, which helped to be paid back later for the pain with three $200 skins.

InTime inventors and operators Claire King and Dirk Venter had much of the judging work with FL Defiance. The team had original Mass Defiance member Jim Rees in the lineup who is one of the FAI/IPC top judges and was the Chief Judge for the Formation Skydiving panels at the USPA Nationals last year.

FL Defiance lost a total of ten points throughout the whole competition, and the majority in the first four rounds. The Shamrock judges surely did not favor their fellow judge of several international events.

SDC Rhythm XP was the cleanest of all teams with only one point deduction. Rhythm increased the Shamrock average of 2017 by 2.1 which almost matches Airspeed (26.4 - 23.9 = 2.5) at both events. However, the U.S. champions then went to 25.8 in Perris last year and now to 26.4 in DeLand, while Rhythm finished slightly below the other 2017 averages.

Sophia Pecout was very pleased with her team's performance, as the 23.5 average is a new team record average. In fact, it is the highest outdoor average ever posted by a female 4-way team, after the 23.6 of Aerokart Deep Blue in 2010, which was boosted by a Super Sequence. The Aerodyne Weembi Girls will follow up this weekend at the French Indoor Nationals 2018, and the NSL News will follow up in Lille, hopefully with the complete lineup...