posted May 8th, 2019 - It is competitive out there in the formation-skydiving world, very competitive.

As in other sports, the challengers are hunting the reigning champions and the field is trying to get as close as possible to the top, the runners-up and all other challengers.

Then there are also all the other battles on the leaderboards between teams that are not in contention for the top spots. Often these battles are fought with the same intensity and energy that the top teams are putting in. I love it.

Still, I want to go back to the top teams and their extremely intensive efforts to defend their titles or defeat the reigning champions. The recently magical team name "HayaBusa" has not been the topic of TURNING POINTS in a very long while, even though there is no other 4-way team in the world at this time that actually turns more points than the Belgians of NMP PCH HayaBusa.

Dennis Praet, Jeroen Nollet, Andy and David Grauwels, at outdoor events with Luc Van Britsom on camera, are the reigning FAI world champions in 4-way indoor and 4-way outdoor competition. First, the original team members Andy and David Grauwels, together with Roy Janssen, were the hunters between 2004 and 2013. With youngest team member Dennis Praet, they lost by one point in 2012 and then won their first set of outdoor gold medals in 2014.

That's when they naturally became the new target for the new hunters, including 2012’s 4-way world champions, Arizona Airspeed. They defended their outdoor world title successfully two times (2016, 2018) with a new team member, Jeroen Nollet.

Arizona Airspeed has been the toughest hunter with different lineups ever since they lost the world title in 2014. HayaBusa and Airspeed also own the highest outdoor meet average in history (27.9) together. Airspeed posted it at the world meet in 2012, HayaBusa last year in Australia.

It soon became even more challenging for the Belgians to defend their top position in the world, as they also won the FAI indoor title in 2015.

The 4-way world separates more and more into indoor and outdoor competition, even though the IPC has recently synchronized the indoor and outdoor dive pools and even though many teams still compete in both worlds.

There are certainly quite a few teams who train and compete only in the wind tunnels, including the ever-growing number of kids and 4-way juniors. That's great too. It has already become quite difficult, if not impossible, to get to the winning level in two different events of formation-skydiving competition.

In fact, only Frenchman Mathieu Bernier managed to accomplish this in 4- and 8-way at the world meet in Menzelinsk 2010. Nobody is even seriously trying this any longer. Each event requires all of each team's attention and resources to win a world championship title.

I believe it will be very similar between indoor and outdoor competition, as well, and very soon. In fact, there are already examples for this situation. The French 4-way junior team Aerokart Ak'demie, naturally exclusively an indoor 4-way team, defeated the new French national 4-way team in 4-way open AND the French national indoor team in 4-way women both at their national championships in March.

France also offers the other example, which brings us to the actual topic, NMP PCH HayaBusa. The Belgians are still the world champions in both 4-way worlds and have to plan their training and meet preparations accordingly.

The lineup of the French Weembi High Rollers, with founding member and original HayaBusa tail Roy Janssen, consists of only 4-way outdoor world champions, as well. However, they came together only to train and compete indoors. They did not leave a doubt that they were aiming at the indoor top spot in the world.

On the other side, HayaBusa knew exactly that they were the only target for the high-profile lineup of Weembi High Rollers. Following my theory, HayaBusa would eventually lose their top position in the world one way or the other, if another top team focused only on one event, or on one 4-way environment, if we call it so.

The Belgians were able to fend off the first High Rollers challenge at the previous indoor world meet in 2017 and maintained both top spots. Now they had won the outdoor titles in 2014 and 2016 and had added the indoor titles in 2015 and 2017.

Then it became even more exciting, as Weembi High Rollers did not let go and even intensified the efforts with a new lineup in 2018, while HayaBusa had to prepare for the outdoor world championship in Australia. There they barely defended the outdoor title successfully against the other outdoor experts from the United States. Arizona Airspeed finished only two points behind HayaBusa, who needed to tie Airspeed's historic 27.9 average of 2012 to win in Australia.

The outdoor gold medals came with a high price. HayaBusa had spent all energy and resources to be ready for the Airspeed challenge in Australia. Then they had two weeks to get ready for the FAI Indoor World Cup in Bahrain where the hungry Weembi High Rollers would be waiting for the defending indoor and outdoor world champions.

FAI Indoor World Cup 2018			1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	Total	Avg
Rank	4-way Open		K,17,J,21	4,H,F,11	18,L,16	5,M,O,C	N,8,P,19	6,9,10	D,12,15	Q,B,G,22	20,E,14	7,3,2	Total	Avg
1	Weembi Mix MF	FR	34	35	31	57	33	31	30	39	29	26	345	34.5
2	NMP-PCH Hayabusa	BE	35	35	27	47	33	31	31	38	28	28	333	33.3

Weembi High Rollers - NMP PCH HayaBusa at the FAI Indoor World Cup 2018

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The HayaBusa members knew there was a very good chance of losing their top spot in the world at any FAI world cups or world championships since 2014, if they traveled to Bahrain shortly after the outdoor world meet. They would have an excuse for not competing in Bahrain and most of the other 4-way national teams did not sign up for the FAI double-pack in October last year, including Arizona Airspeed.

However, the Belgians knew that the value of a potential victory for Weembi High Rollers would only really matter if it came with the presence of the defending champions. So, they had decided to show up and do what they could to offer the French national indoor team in 4-way open as much opposition as possible and then congratulate them for winning the world cup title. Great sports.

Things changed again as soon as the 2018 outdoor season was over. NMP PCH HayaBusa had time to focus on indoor training and competition and were well prepared and eager for the next showdown at the Wind Games 2019, where they won by 21 points over Weembi High Rollers in second place and with a new historic indoor record average. Great sports too.

Both teams will be well prepared when it comes to the next showdown for the new FAI world championship indoor title in April on Weembi home turf. Reigning indoor world cup champions versus reigning world meet champions—I love it...