posted Jun 3rd, 2018 - The NSL News story on 12 January 2018 reported bad news from Italy after the Italian AeroClub had officially announced that there will be no national championships this year, and the FAI World Championship of Formation Skydiving 2018 would have no team from Italy compete in Australia. This would be the first world meet since 1985 without an Italian 4-way team:

"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."

The update from Italy was not very promising for the two top teams, HF eX3MO and Amnesya, who have recently been closer to each other than ever before. eX3MO won last year's national championships by one point and would have competed for Italy in Australia without the problems that came up at the end of the 2017 season.

The NSL News has covered the athletic development between the two Italian teams for a few years. The last two updates were posted first on 30 March 2018, followed by the story on 15 May 2018 after the Italian Indoor Nationals 2018.

Italian Outdoor Nationals 2017		1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	Total	Avg
Rank	AAA Class	B,D,15,P	N,Q,F,8	L,C,H,6	18,J,A,19	E,1,M,11	G,2,3	22,7,10	20,K,16	12,O,9	4,5,21	Total	Avg
1	Ex3mo	19	25	26	19	22	17	16	17	20	17	198	19.8
2	Amnesya	25	25	24	18	20	18	15	16	21	15	197	19.7
3	610	23	24	24	18	20	16	12	16	19	14	186	18.6
4	Stand By	15	18	16	11	14	12	11	10	12	11	130	13.0
5	Assouei	13	14	11	11	12	10	9	9	7	7	103	10.3

The situation in Italy has settled in the meantime, after teams and officials tried to find a way how to send a team from Italy to Australia and officially represent the country in October.

The Italian AeroClub has finally scheduled a national championship event for the August 10 - 12 weekend in Ravenna, and the final outdoor showdown between HF eX3MO and Amnesya will eventually take place.

The national championship in Ravenna is now officially sanctioned as the qualification event for the world meet in Australia, which adds the maximum of excitement to it.

In Italy, as in many other countries, the qualification for a world meet is usually the national championship the year before.

HF eX3MO won last year's championship and are the reigning Italian 4-way outdoor champions, which would have qualified the team for the next world meet.

The circumstances after the earlier troubles with the Italian AeroClub have changed the situation and will move the final selection of the national team much closer to the world championship.

Italian Indoor Nationals 2018		1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	Total	Avg
Rank	AAA Class	Q,14,O,18	C,11,1	19,17,12	2,15,22	P,F,8,H	B,3,9	J,D,16,G	7,20,M	6,13,A	5,N,E,L	Total	Avg
1	Amnesya	28	23	21	23	43	32	36	31	26	36	299	29.9
2	HF eX3MO	27	24	21	21	37	31	33	28	24	31	277	27.7
3	Standby	19	14	15	15	27	21	17	18	17	20	183	18.3
4	44F	16	17	15	13	24	21	21	20	18	15	180	18.0

The new situation will more likely secure that the best Italian 4-way team will represent the country this year in Australia, while it makes it logistically more challenging, with less than two months to prepare for the long trip to Down Under.

National teams who qualify a year in advance have more time to prepare properly for the most relevant event in the sport and take care of the logistics, instead of investing all resources into winning the same year's qualification.

However, HF eX3MO and Amnesya both have to win in August first to make it to Australia, and the national championship in Ravenna has to be the main goal before shifting the focus to international competition.

Both teams are reigning Italian 4-way champions, eX3MO in outdoor competition, while Amnesya won this year's indoor title. eX3MO have competed for Italy at the FAI world meets in 2012 (7th), 2014 (10th) and 2016 (11th).

Amnesya have not attended an outdoor world championship yet and placed 8th for Italy at the FAI Indoor World Meet 2017.

The winner of this year's national showdown will probably try to improve the international placements for Italy two months later. Italy has won two sets of FAI 4-way bronze medals in 1991 and 2006.