posted Sep 21st, 2018 - Three recent events are connected with each other by teams from Belgium, directly and indirectly. Jetmax (AAA), Ayro (AA) and Aeropotam's (A) competed at their national championships and are currently posting scores at the ESL Championship 2018.

The third event, the USPA Nationals 2018, is not only related to the Belgian Nationals 2018 by Arizona Airspeed, who are in pursuit of the reigning Belgian 4-way world champions, NMP PCH HayaBusa.

The NSL News has covered the teams right behind the top level of the 4-way pros for several years. It is the story of the unofficial amateur world champions.

U.S. team Mass Defiance with their various lineups, the Belgian/Dutch combination of Thunder ISR and Russia's SportLoto were the teams who received most of the "amateur attention" over the years with their 20+ performances. The NSL News mentioned in 2017 that Belgium's new team ISR FireFlash will probably join the amateur top level very soon. This eventually happened at the Belgian Nationals 2018 where FireFlash finished with a 20.8 average.

Belgian Nationals 2018			1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	Total	Avg
Rank	AAA Class		8,H,E,1	19,3,4	N,11,G,10	A,17,14	B,D,7,5	21,15,9	12,F,L,M	6,C,J,O	P,2,Q,22	K,20,16	Total	Avg
1	NMP-PCH Hayabusa	BE	26	25	23	24	37	25	32	34	26	24	276	27.6
2	Echochamber	SE	23	18	19	17	26	20	24	27	19	18	211	21.1
3	ISR FireFlash	BE	18	17	19	20	27	18	25	25	20	19	208	20.8
4	JETMAX	BE	15	11	11	9	14	11	16	15	14	11	127	12.7
5	Falco	BE	10	9	11	11	12	7	11	13	12	6	102	10.2
6	Lentonopeus	BE	9	10	8	10	10	7	11	12	11	7	95	9.5

There was another amateur team at same event that did not even stop at the 20+ average level. Echochamber from Sweden had posted a 21.1 average at Sweden's national championships this year and confirmed it as a guest team at the Belgian Nationals 2018.

ISR FireFlash had an 18.3 top average in the records after last year's national championships and finished with 20.8 earlier this month, three points behind Echochamber.

Just as much as NMP PCH HayaBusa was interested in Airspeed's scores a few weeks later, the two amateur teams in Belgium were probably also looking at the results behind Airspeed and SDC Rhythm XP. Defiance was back in action at Chicagoland, and Airspeed Odyssey has not been a professional 4-way team any longer for many years.

Echochamber (21.1) and ISR FireFlash (20.8) both finished with higher meet averages than the U.S. teams (20.6 - 20.3) and all four teams can discuss the value of the different competition draws to find the proper amateur rankings.

NMP PCH HayaBusa, Arizona Airspeed and Echochamber will now travel to Australia and represent their countries at the FAI World Meet 2018, while ISR FireFlash, Airspeed Odyssey and Defiance will not have an opportunity for a direct and unofficial amateur showdown.

However, Sweden's national team in 4-way Open is probably the top contender for this unofficial title in Australia.

The three Belgian teams in Saarlouis are now in the middle of the ESL Championship action, where they have a chance to win the ESL Spirit for the Belgian delegation.

Aeropotam's seem to win the 10 ESL points in the A Class, and Stardust is in 2nd place behind Team Red from the Netherlands. Jetmax will collect precious AAA Class ranking points for Belgium.

The race for the ESL Spirit is wide open at this point in time, and Round 3 will be completed at the end of the first day.