posted Apr 16th, 2019 - Weembi Lille, host of the upcoming FAI Indoor World Meet, is getting busier day by day. It has become very difficult for teams and participants to get flying time for training. In fact, the week leading into the competition was completely booked out a long time ago.

The registered teams and competitors for the official world meet disciplines also have priority this week, which brought the 8-way teams to the end of the waiting and booking line. Only the Qatar Falcons arrived early enough last week for 8-way training at Weembi Lille.

However, teams become creative when they have to get themselves ready for an important competition, and they found an alternative for their training purposes, which was even recommended by Weembi Lille owner and operator Julien Degen. Just across the border to Belgium, barely two hours of driving distance away, there is another wind tunnel in Liege with an identical 17-foot flying chamber. FLY-IN Liege has very busy days, as well, directly related to the indoor world meet in France.

Even the French national indoor 8-way team did not get priority or exceptions for training before the unofficial FAI 8-way competition. The Weembi home team scheduled their own last training sessions in Liege, where they visited for the first time on Monday. The NSL News joined the travel group for a quick and short trip to Belgium.

FAI Indoor World Meet 2019			1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	Total	Avg
Rank	NSL Power Rankings 8-way		TBD	TBD	TBD	TBD	TBD	TBD	TBD	TBD	TBD	TBD	TBD	Total	Avg
1	Paraclete XP8	US	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
2	Tanay	RU	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
3	France	FR	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
4	Qatar Falcons	QA	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
5	MicroClim8	UK	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
6	Why Not?	PL	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-

The NSL News had introduced the French 8-way indoor lineup on January 19th, and the team had completed just below ten hours of indoor training before the trip to Liege on Monday. The French 8-way team is still expected to compete for unofficial FAI indoor medal rankings after missing the FAI Outdoor World Meet 2018 in Australia.

The lineup is the same as it was published with the earlier story. However, there was a change in the French indoor delegation that effected the 8-way team indirectly. Nephtys Weembi, the French national indoor team in 4-way Women, was recently facing a personnel change, when team member Jessica Thebault injured her knee at work. She is in Lille as the official alternate, even though she would not be able to help out.

National coach Mathieu Bernier had a quick solution, as reigning 4-way Women world champion Pamela Lissajoux was only competing in 8-way at the indoor world meet. They agreed to assign her to double duties with the French 8-way team and also with Nephtys Weembi in 4-way Women.

This situation brings 4-way Women world champions Clementine Le Bohec and Pamela Lissajoux both to their best slots in the center, and Nephtys will not be any weaker at all with the new lineup, even without much training prior to the event.

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Pamela Lissajoux is now the only member of the French indoor delegation with double duties, and she was facing the first challenge on Monday. Her 8-way team traveled to Liege on Sunday night and had scheduled an hour of flying time. The last training session took place in the afternoon, and Nephtys Weembi were waiting for her with 4-way training just two hours later.

She did not even take off her jumpsuit after the last flying session in Liege and ran to the car to master the traffic situation between the French/Belgian border successfully, then prepare for the first flying session with her 4-way team and coach Julien Degen.

Logistically, it will be much easier to switch from 4-way to 8-way, and back, during the competition, while the mental challenge of competing for medals in both events will be on a much higher level.

However, Pamela Lissajoux is a stage performer with a rock band in her other life, and she is used to pressure. She did not even break a sweat on Monday...