posted May 1st, 2018 - The new FAI European Indoor Championship 2018 included a 4-way junior competition with four teams participating. France, Czech Republic and Norway had 4-way junior teams at previous FAI indoor events (world cup, world meet) while a junior team from Russia attended an FAI 4-way competition for the first time.

The four teams consisted of two completely different groups of 4-way experience. Aerokart Ak'demie and HF Cubs still compete for the FAI medals in 4-way Junior at the FAI events, while both have already joined the AAA Class world and are trained for the complete FAI/IPC dive pool with slot-switchers and longer sequences.

In fact, both teams have competed in the AAA Class before traveling to Norway to compete with the AA Class dive pool and shorter sequences. Aerokart Ak'demie has completed 30 competition rounds at three meets this year, including the French Indoor Nationals 2018, where they placed 11th of 24 teams with a 22.8 average. The HF Cubs have posted AAA Class scores on the internal Czech Indoor Cloud League leaderboards since the beginning of the year.

FAI European Indoor Championship 2018			1		2		3		4		5		6		7		8		Total	Avg
Rank	4-way Junior		H,B,F,18		N,6,D		19,M,C		8,7		Q,15,K		P,J,2		E,9,4		14,O,L		Total	Avg
1	Aerokart Ak'demie 2	FR	29	-1	26	-3	28	-1	24	-1	27	-1	27	-2	29		26		216	27.0
2	HF Cubs	CZ	30	-3	23	-3	26		14	-10	23	-1	22	-3	23	-2	25		186	23.3
3	Russia FS Junior	RU	15		15		12	-3	12		15		15		17		15	-1	116	14.5
4	Norway FS Junior	NO	13	-1	12		13		12		13		14		14		14		105	13.1

The teams from Norway and Russia were new to international 4-way competition, even though Hilda Bastesen Storebø has trained and competed with the VossVind Girls before. The two pairs of teams were far away from each other on the 4-way Junior leaderboard, with France and Czech Republic battling for gold and silver, Russia and Norway for the bronze medals.

It was no big surprise that Aerokart Ak'demie and HF Cubs both posted AA Class team record averages, as the competition in Norway must have felt like a walk in the park, compared to a 10-round meet in the AAA Class.

The HF Cubs finished closer to Aerokart Ak'demie in Norway (27.0 - 23.3) than they were at the FAI Indoor World Meet 2017 (28.8 - 22.6) where both teams competed the last time at the same event.

Aerokart Ak'demie won in Montreal last year, where the HF Cubs brought the FAI bronze medals back to the Czech Republic. The Canadian Air Devils had finished in 2nd place.

The reigning French 4-way junior world champions were impressed when the all-female HF Cubs lineup came out of the starting blocks like a team from a Hurricane Factory.

They won Round 1 despite three point deductions and staid close in the two following rounds to keep pressure on the Aerokart team. The HF Cubs would have even been ten points closer to the French 4-way juniors without the devastating score sheet for Round 4.

Score sheet of the HF Cubs after Round 4 at the FAI European Indoor Championship 2018

The 3-judge panel obviously did not like the Czech grip connection of the front piece for Block 8 (Canadian T - Canadian T). They declared each first and second Canadian T of Block 8 as "incorrect formations", except for the very first one after the entry into the flying chamber.

The Czech team and their coaches have developed a new and stronger grip connection during their training and applied it perfectly at the FAI competition. They did not consider that the judges might not accept the new and unknown grip connection as a legal flying technique and had to suffer heavy damage for a modern and well working invention.

It was surprising that this grip connection was causing enough confusion in the judging room to cause such a damaging result.

Teams and coaches are consistently looking for ways how to improve flying techniques, and it was not too long ago that a new grip connection was invented and apparently accepted for compressed accordion pieces (Blocks 11, 12, 13, 16) where the situation is very similar.

For the new technique, the piece partners are "hiding" the grips under their elbows and legs during the inter to release them at the end of the block. The inter has still been accepted by the judges, even though the grips are not clearly visible all the time. The HF Cubs swallowed the penalty damage quietly and moved on to the next round on the way to a new team record average...