posted Apr 26th, 2019 - It was expected that the competition for the three sets of medals at the FAI Indoor World Meet would be reserved for NMP PCH HayaBusa, Weembi High Rollers and Arizona Airspeed. Even the placings between the three best 4-way teams in the world were predictable if no surprising performance accidents occurred.

All three teams were well prepared, delivered somehow according to their standards and ended up in the expected medal rankings.

The situation and the outcome was not the same behind the three top teams. The NSL News mentioned in the preview on April 3rd that Qatar Tigers, Echochamber and Black Cat would be "hoping for their own peak performance and a weak meet for any of the three expected FAI medalists".

There was no weak performance in the medal rankings, and Arizona Airspeed distanced themselves by 19 points from the nearest challenger from behind, Qatar Tigers. The 4-way team of the Qatar delegation have established themselves internationally in the position right behind the medal rankings for a while, even though Russia's indoor team IFS Moscow placed 3rd and ahead of the Tigers at the World Challenge.

FAI World Meet 2019			1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	Total	Avg
Rank	4-way Open		M,K,D,14	Q,4,5	P,E,9,15	3,N,G,2	6,1,8	F,12,11	13,22,J	H,L,B,18	O,20,A,17	21,7,19	Total	Avg
1	NMP-PCH Hayabusa	BE	39	36	42	35	27	32	29	42	38	31	351	35.1
2	Weembi High Rollers	FR	38	33	44	32	27	29	26	47	37	31	344	34.4
3	Arizona Airspeed	US	39	33	40	30	27	29	24	39	33	27	321	32.1
4	Qatar Tigers	QA	34	30	36	29	22	27	28	36	32	28	302	30.2
5	Airheads	CH	35	28	33	29	25	27	24	36	30	25	292	29.2
6	Black Cat	RU	34	29	39	29	25	22	25	36	26	22	287	28.7
7	Echochamber	SE	34	27	35	26	22	25	20	35	26	24	274	27.4
8	ACM Weembi	UK	32	28	32	26	20	24	19	35	26	25	267	26.7
9	Airfource	DE	33	22	33	25	22	23	20	35	25	24	262	26.2
10	HF Flying Circus	CZ	31	26	28	23	24	22	18	33	19	23	247	24.7
11	Pro Team	FI	27	24	30	23	23	22	22	30	23	22	246	24.6
12	Monaco Indoor Skydive Team	MC	27	21	27	23	20	22	21	29	21	21	232	23.2
13	FlySpot Sky4Four	PL	27	23	28	23	19	20	20	29	21	21	231	23.1
14	Papea Masculino	ES	28	23	26	16	21	20	21	30	23	22	230	23.0
15	Out of the Blue	NL	24	22	27	19	19	19	18	27	24	20	219	21.9
16	H40	IE	22	19	23	17	18	17	17	24	20	19	196	19.6
17	Skydive University Slovakia	SK	23	19	23	17	18	17	14	22	19	17	189	18.9
18	Lithuania	LT	26	15	19	15	17	16	17	21	-	-	146	18.3

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Black Cat had won the Russian indoor qualification though and competed at Weembi Lille, where they could not match their own previous standards and had to allow the Qatar Tigers to take back the 4th place. A different lineup, including 4-way and 8-way veteran Vasily Korotkov, had finished three times with 30+ averages, and the 28.7 at Weembi Lille was below Black Cat standards.

Black Cat members Valentin Ilin and Vladimir Pavlenko were back together with Vasily Korotkov in the 8-way competition, where Tanay won the bronze medals for Russia and finished ahead of the Qatar Falcons.

Qatar has two separate teams for the Formation Skydiving events, the Tigers in 4-way and the Falcons in 8-way. There are no double duties for the Qatar competitors, and both teams keep moving closer to the top rankings. In fact, Qatar Falcons already won 8-way bronze medals in Australia 2018 in the absence of a French 8-way team.

Russia's Formation Skydiving delegation in Australia had no overlapping between 4-way and 8-way. Team leader Andrey Barabash and coach Craig Girard will probably go back to the same strategy for next year's outdoor world meet, and all team members will focus only on 8-way competition.

Qatar Tigers - Airheads - Black Cat at the FAI Indoor World Meet 2019

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Not only the Qatar Tigers placed ahead of Black Cat at the indoor world meet. The Airheads from Switzerland have carefully and quietly made their way up the leaderboard and finished as one of the few teams with new record averages. In fact, the Swiss team was the only one in the Top 10 with the best career performance.

The 29.2 average will probably be the last time for the Airheads below the 30-average benchmark, as the Swiss scoring progression (27.6 - 28.2 - 29.2) has been very consistent this year. The Airheads squeezed themselves into the group of teams behind the medals rankings and finished right behind the Qatar Tigers.

The indoor season is over now though, and the teams will focus on outdoor competition and use indoor time only for additional training. The Swiss team had finished tied with Satori XL in 7th place at the FAI Outdoor World Meet last year in Australia, after an 11th place at the FAI Outdoor World Cup 2017 in Saarlouis.

There is no doubt that Airheads would like to at least match the 5th place at the indoor world meet with the same finishing position at the next outdoor world meet in Tanay 2020...