posted Jan 21st, 2019 - It did not take too long until French national coach Mathieu Bernier followed up on the 8-way indoor lineup for the FAI Indoor World Meet 2019 with his outdoor delegation for the next two years.

France will have an 8-way team again, which will go after FAI medals in Tanay 2020, and it is a very strong and talented lineup. In fact, the new 8-way team is the foundation for the whole French Formation Skydiving delegation in 4-way Open, 4-way Women and 8-way.

It is almost the opposite direction compared to the last two years, when France did not give 8-way competition the same value as in the Formation Skydiving competition history since 1985, and even further back.

The NSL News mentioned several times last year that the FAI World Meet 2018 in Australia was the first time that France did not send a national team to this event.

The new French 8-way team is also the start for a completely new lineup of a new generation of French competitors, even compared to the indoor lineup at Weembi Lille in April. Martial Ferre still represents the generation of former French 8-way world champions at the FAI Indoor World Meet. However, his days are also counted, and the new outdoor lineup has no former 8-way world champions in the lineup at all.

Medal winners in 8-way Formation Skydiving competition between 1985 and 2018

It's a complete makeover by national coach Mathieu Bernier who won his own 8-way gold medals in 2006, 2008 and 2010. He and his former world champion team mates Julien Degen, Julien Olek, Bruno Perin, Thomas Perrin Gachadoat, Clement Martin Saint Leon, Emmanuel Sarrazin and Damien Sorlin were still in the 2016 lineup and won the silver medals at Skydive Chicago for France, with Olivier Henaff on camera.

B-Team member Aurelien Lemaire was the 8-way alternate in 2016, and he is the only member in the new indoor lineup for the world meet at Weembi in April, and in the new outdoor lineup for the next two years.

Aurelien Lemaire will have very busy two years, which will be the same for all 8-way members. The new 8-way team has also both French national 4-way teams in the lineup.

Damien Gouriou, Kévin Mansion and Alban Rumolo are Aurélien Lemaire's new team mates in the 4-way Open Class lineup, and David Ricard will be on camera. He was filming Damien Gouriou and Kévin Mansion with Aerodyne Realfly to the bronze medals in Australia. Alban Rumolo is one of the many French 4-way competitors who have been waiting for their opportunities in the national B-Team lineups. His father was also in the French national 8-way team of 1997.

FAI Mondial 2016			1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	Total	Avg
Rank	8-way		12,A,16	18,15,O	1,F,E,C	17,B,14	10,2,20	21,11,G	J,5,19	L,M,K,7	D,8,4	3,13,Q	Total	Avg
1	Golden Knights	US	31	25	26	22	20	22	19	26	24	24	239	23.9
2	France	FR	22	20	25	18	16	19	17	23	19	20	199	19.9
3	Tanay	RU	23	19	25	17	14	16	16	21	20	19	190	19.0
4	Qatar Falcons	QA	19	16	20	15	7	10	13	16	15	15	146	14.6
5	Microclim8	UK	15	14	16	14	11	13	13	14	13	17	140	14.0
6	Airbus	DE	16	15	17	11	11	13	12	14	12	15	136	13.6
7	Australia	AU	13	13	14	12	9	13	12	15	10	14	125	12.5
8	Divergence	CA	11	10	9	11	8	10	8	10	11	11	99	9.9
9	Brazil	BR	11	8	10	9	5	9	9	11	8	13	93	9.3

Golden Knights - France - Russia Tanay at the FAI World Meet 2016

The other half of the new 8-way lineup are three of the 4-way Women world champions (Christine Malnis, Sophia Pecout, Clementine Le Bohec) with new member Gaelle Giesen who replaces Pamela Lissajoux. Julie Fournier will be filming the 4-way Women team, while world champion videographer Michel Laynaud is switching to the 8-way camera.

Mathieu Bernier said that the 8-way team has first priority in the next two years. He hopes that the new 4-way Women lineup will not need too much training to defend the title successfully. In fact, he had proposed a similar situation for last year's world meet in Australia, where he would have assigned the Aerodyne Weembi Girls to double duties in 4-way and 8-way.

The French federation did not approve the 8-way plan, and the Weembi Girls won only the 4-way Women title without any serious competition. The new plan for the next two years is based on the same double duties with 8-way priority.

The 4-way Open Class lineup will try to defend the bronze medals while aiming at more in 8-way. The road is cleared, France is back in full 8-way swing, and the NSL News will introduce the French lineups with more details soon.