posted Sep 18th, 2018 - The Advanced Class competition at the USPA Nationals 2018 was almost as exciting as the Intermediate Class battle for the bronze medals. Only a jump-off was missing to match the drama.

It was close, as Seattle Swift and Elsinore Elevate were separated by only one single point after Round 10. Winner Savage XP allowed another team to tie their highscores for a round only once and dominated the Advanced Class competition just as much as Arizona Airspeed in the Open Class.

In fact, Kirk Verner's team would have finished in 6th place of the Open Class leaderboard with the new 17.4 Advanced Class record average.

Seattle Swift, Elsinore Elevate and AZ Alpha were separated by a total of seven points after the ten rounds, and each each team claimed several highscores in this battle for the silver and bronze medals. Seattle Swift eventually recovered quickly from a 3-point deduction in Round 4 due to the video angle and won the silver medals with a strong second half of the meet.

USPA Nationals 2018		1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	Total	Avg
Rank	4-way Advanced	J,19,K,22	P,13,A,E	H,G,Q,B,21	9,2,L	C,14,4	O,16,3	1,15,10	M,20,11	F,D,18,6	5,12,17	Total	Avg
1	Savage XP	18	17	24	17	14	17	14	18	20	15	174	17.4
2	Seattle Swift	16	15	18	12	13	16	12	18	15	13	148	14.8
3	Elsinore Elevate	14	17	19	17	13	14	10	14	14	15	147	14.7
4	AZ Alpha	14	11	20	16	13	16	11	12	15	13	141	14.1
5	CSC Some Senseless Tragedy	14	14	18	15	11	12	10	13	14	13	134	13.4
6	Nexus CK	14	12	16	16	11	15	12	13	13	11	133	13.3
7	Perris Quattro	12	16	19	14	12	13	8	14	13	11	132	13.2
8	Vega XP	14	12	17	12	12	13	10	14	14	13	131	13.1
9	SDC Rhesilience	14	10	16	13	11	14	9	13	15	12	127	12.7
10	Fearview Mirrors	11	12	15	13	12	14	10	13	12	11	123	12.3
10	AF Skyfall	11	12	16	13	12	13	10	12	14	10	123	12.3
12	SCZ ZEUS	11	13	13	13	10	11	7	12	12	9	111	11.1
13	Perris Praxis	11	12	15	13	9	12	8	11	10	9	110	11.0
14	Levity-O	11	12	16	11	9	12	9	8	12	9	109	10.9
15	Jen and the 4 Aliens	10	12	13	11	10	12	8	11	11	9	107	10.7
16	Fast Break	10	9	13	11	9	9	7	10	9	9	96	9.6
17	Perris Section 4	10	7	10	9	8	11	8	11	10	8	92	9.2
18	North Force 4-Way team	8	10	14	8	7	10	7	10	10	6	90	9.0
18	4 the Love of Dogs	8	9	11	10	8	9	8	9	10	8	90	9.0
20	Renegades	9	9	11	11	8	8	8	9	9	7	89	8.9
21	SDC Jetstream Tango	6	4	10	8	9	7	5	9	9	9	76	7.6

Seattle Swift, in the team's second year of AAA Class competition, was actually the winner of the Intermediate Class (AA) competition at the USPA Nationals 2017. However, the Northwest Skydiving League team was not eligible for winning USPA medals by then, moved up into the AAA/Advanced Class anyway and was ready for the podium a year later in Perris.

The 14.1 average in 2017 was one point short of a set of medals, and Swift came to Chicagoland to try again. This time, the 14.8 average won the silver medals with a 1-point advantage over Elsinore Elevate.

The opposition was strong, as three former Arizona Airspeed 4-way world champions were guiding the other three top contenders as player coaches. Original Airspeed member Kirk Verner won the gold medals with Savage XP. Elsinore Elevate's Josh Hall won with Airspeed and the highest outdoor average in 4-way history at the Mondial Dubai 2012. AZ Alpha's Mark Kirkby is still the most successful 4-way and 8-way competitor in the history of the sport.

Seattle Swift made their own way without a player coach and were prepared for this year's competition by former Perris Fury member Christy Frikken.

iFLY Seattle - August	AAA	AA	A	RRR	RR	R	Total
Teams	H,6,E,15	J,6,11	A,L,7	B,H,E	M,A,L	M,J	Total
Jeramy Eggum, Ryan Bartling, Bill Selig, Djordje Mandaric	11	12	-	-	-	-	23
Kurt Ferstl, Gary Dutton, David Zhang, Djordje Mandaric	-	-	12	-	-	-	12
Babs Selig, Erik Byng, Samantha d'Andrea, Deb Correia	-	-	-	18(-1)	-	-	18
Katie Crabb, Pedro Pablo Fuentes Schuster, Dave Correia, Bill Selig	-	-	-	-	13	18	31
iFLY Seattle's Best of August	11	12	12	18	13	18	84

Seattle Swift has also collected many AAA and AA points for iFLY Seattle's Indoor Cloud League team. They have been using the two monthly Open Class sequences to check their own performance level and compare it with other scores in the same categories, and they helped other NWSL competitors to learn more about 4-way competition at the indoor events.

iFLY Seattle's ICL team missed the high-level scores in the two categories in August, as Seattle Swift was getting ready for the outdoor performance at Chicagoland.

Only the most experienced Swift member, Djordje Mandaric, still attended the Indoor Cloud League event and player-coached the lineups through the three technical sequences (AAA - AA - A). NWSL judge Bill Selig was in his AAA/AA lineup and became a player coach himself for two of the Rookie Class sequences (RR - R).

The iFLY Seattle team also had a new participant with Katie Crabb, who had prepared herself with 15 minutes of 1-1 training with Deb Correia prior to the event. Deb Correia said that "she was a very solid flyer for her experience level and is a great addition to the group". More Seattle Swift members will probably be back at the next ICL event, and the team will take on more AAA/AA sequences while planning for the 2019 season...