posted Aug 27th, 2018 - The leaderboard of the UK Nationals 2018 on the front page was quickly replaced by the one from the German Nationals 2018, which is not a matter of priority but dates on the event calendar.

The German Nationals started on Sunday, which was the second day for the British 4-way teams. In fact, the Dutch Nationals are about to be launched, as well, which makes this week also a partial preview of the upcoming FAI World Meet 2018.

The AAA Class leaderboard of the German Nationals is not offering any surprises and not even any close battles for the medal rankings. That's completely different at Skydive Hibaldstow in Great Britain where NFTO, the national team in 4-way Women, is one single point ahead of Satori XL, the British 4-way team in 4-way Open, after Round 8.

Both teams will compete for the United Kingdom at the upcoming FAI World Meet 2018 in Australia. Satori XL is not really in the race for a medal position in 4-way Open, where NMP PCH HayaBusa (Belgium), Arizona Airspeed (United States) and Aerodyne Realfly (France) seem to have distanced themselves with their known 2018 scores from any other potential medal contenders.

UK Nationals 2018		1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	Total	Avg
Rank	AAA Class	E,C,12,14	7,Q,K,G	B,J,2,A	15,D,4	L,13,M,F	6,8,O	11,18,N	9,10,5	1,17,22	3,21,H	P,19,16	Total	Avg
1	NFTO	19	27	27	16	25	19	16	19	-	-	-	168	21.0
2	Satori XL	18	27	25	18	25	18	17	19	-	-	-	167	20.9
3	Chimera	14	20	19	13	22	17	15	18	-	-	-	138	17.3
4	Eros	16	21	18	15	20	15	14	15	-	-	-	134	16.8
5	Antimatter	13	18	18	14	21	16	12	15	-	-	-	127	15.9
6	Pajama Pumas	12	17	18	11	17	17	12	13	-	-	-	117	14.6
7	Quadriga	12	13	16	11	15	11	10	10	-	-	-	98	12.3
8	Tyanno4us Rex	8	10	13	11	13	11	9	11	-	-	-	86	10.8
9	DWS	7	14	13	11	12	10	9	8	-	-	-	84	10.5

NFTO is surely in the race for medals in 4-way Women in Australia, after placing 3rd at the FAI World Meet 2016. They might not be able to challenge the Aerodyne Weembi Girls for the top spot, while their recent scores have made NFTO the top contender for the position behind the French national team in 4-way Women.

Satori XL has not felt such domestic pressure as this week at national championships in many years. Team 4mula came closer than any other British team last year and were still seven point behind in 2nd place after Round 10.

It is a very unusual situation for Satori XL to be even one point behind after Round 8. NFTO has once again increased the performance level after the 20.3 average at the July meet of the United Kingdom Skydiving League and stand at 21.0 after Round 8. Satori XL is well ahead of the team's 10-round average at last year's national championships (19.6) which is not enough yet to fend off the NFTO challenge.

Monday, the last day of the British Nationals 2018, will feature a real showdown between NFTO and Satori XL for the 1st place in the British AAA/4-way Open category...