posted Oct 24th, 2018 - It is well known by now that the French national team in 4-way Women, Aerodyne Weembi Girls, won the gold medals in their category at the FAI World Meet 2018 and would have placed 3rd on the 4-way Open Class leaderboard with the highest average of any all-female teams in the history of the sport.

The NSL News also pointed out that the British national team in the same event, NFTO, finished in the Top 10 on the combined leaderboard of all 4-way teams that used the same competition draw.

NFTO were turning their bronze medals in 4-way Women of 2016 into silver behind Aerodyne French Girls in Australia this month at the same time.

The NSL News now features the complete combined leaderboard with all teams that are not as well trained as the medal winners and the Top 10 finishers.

The exciting battle for bronze medals in 4-way Women was covered on 14 October 2018, with all other five teams behind Aerodyne French Girls and NFTO posting highscores between each other, and with three of the five teams finishing within two points for the bronze medal position.

FAI World Meet 2018			1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	Total	Avg
Rank	4-way Open/Women Combined		21,L,B,G	22,18,17	19,7,O	J,16,12	10,A,D,15	Q,M,F,C,N	H,20,P,13	6,14,11	E,2,5	4,1,3	Total	Avg
1	NMP-PCH Hayabusa	BE	32	21	27	24	22	62	22	20	27	22	279	27.9
2	Arizona Airspeed	US	26	21	27	24	24	60	26	22	27	20	277	27.7
3	Aerodyne Weembi Girls	FR	29	20	24	22	25	56	23	18	22	18	257	25.7
4	Aerodyne Realfly	FR	29	19	24	23	24	52	20	17	24	19	251	25.1
5	Qatar Tigers	QA	24	14	24	21	22	53	21	18	20	17	234	23.4
6	Echochamber	SE	25	16	21	17	20	48	14	18	21	15	215	21.5
7	Amnesya	IT	24	14	20	18	18	48	18	14	21	15	210	21.0
8	NFTO	UK	20	15	22	19	18	38	18	17	19	16	202	20.2
9	Satori XL	UK	21	14	21	19	19	37	19	17	18	16	201	20.1
9	Airheads	CH	22	14	19	17	18	44	16	16	18	17	201	20.1
11	Evolution	CA	21	13	22	18	15	43	15	15	19	15	196	19.6
12	Airbus FSZ Saar	DE	21	14	17	17	16	45	15	14	18	15	192	19.2
13	Tanay Wolves	RU	22	14	18	17	16	35	17	14	18	14	185	18.5
14	Rotor Out	AU	21	13	18	14	16	32	13	13	18	14	172	17.2
15	Team X	SE	17	10	18	16	14	36	15	13	18	12	169	16.9
16	Phoenix XP	US	17	12	17	14	15	37	16	12	14	13	167	16.7
16	Boomerang Betty	AU	19	11	18	14	15	32	15	13	17	13	167	16.7
18	CTR Optimum	BR	19	10	17	15	13	31	14	14	18	13	164	16.4
19	Fuzion Voltige	CA	17	9	18	14	15	34	14	13	14	13	161	16.1
20	Papea Masculino	ES	17	13	18	13	13	28	14	14	13	12	155	15.5
21	Skynamite	DE	19	12	16	14	14	27	13	12	15	12	154	15.4
22	Out of the Blue Project 20+	NL	16	11	13	14	15	28	15	15	14	12	153	15.3
23	Meraki	ZA	14	11	14	14	13	28	12	12	14	12	144	14.4
24	New Zealand	NZ	10	9	12	11	10	21	7	11	10	11	112	11.2
25	Paraguay	PY	10	8	10	7	9	17	7	8	10	8	94	9.4
26	Cyprus	CY	13	8	9	8	7	19	7	8	9	5	93	9.3

It was still not only the French winner and NFTO who have been orienting their performances and scoring level with eyes on the Open Class leaderboard, as well. They were not really challenged for their finishing positions in 4-way Women and could find their competition only by comparing their own scores with the ones in 4-way Open.

There were also similar additional battles across the two 4-way leaderboards with identical competition draws between the five bronze medal contenders in 4-way Women and their indirect opponents on the 4-way Open leaderboard.

However, the three 4-way Women teams who eventually finished with only a 2-point difference between each other (Team X, Sweden - Phoenix XP, United States - Boomerang Betty, Australia) were also glued to each other on the combined leaderboard. Rotor Out, Australia's national team in 4-way Open, finished three points ahead of the female 3-team block that included Boomerang Betty, Australia's national team in 4-way Women.

Both Australian 4-way teams included members with double duties who also competed together for the Australian 8-way lineup, Rotor Out's Tanya Cale and Boomerang Betty's Ann-Marie Jarzebowski. They battled with MicroClim8 for the 4th place on the 8-way leaderboard, as well.

CTR Optimum from Brazil, also with a female 4-way competitor, Juliana Sé, in the lineup, squeezed themselves in between the same three 4-way Women teams and Fuzion Voltige from Canada. The Brazilian team finished with exactly the same average that they had posted at the national championships in July this year.

Germany's team in 4-way Women, Skynamite, finished with a team record average and still ended up at the bottom of the 4-way Women leaderboard after a very promising start into the competition. Skynamite was four points ahead of bronze medal winner Team X after Round 2 and still tied with the Swedish team after Round 5. The 27-pointer for the Super Sequence in Round 6 was the end of the bronze medal contention.

Skynamite was still engaged in a 1-point battle with Papea Masculino from Spain after the Germans had fallen behind in 4-way Women, and they had to fend off Out of the Blue from the Netherlands in the last two rounds.

Papea Masculino was the only all-male team in this mix of all-female bronze medal contenders. In fact, all teams on the combined leaderboard between 13th and 23rd place had either all-female or mixed-gender lineups, except for the 4-way Open Class team from Spain...