posted Jun 18th, 2019 - The French national Formation Skydiving teams continue with the development of their new lineups, while NMP PCH HayaBusa and Arizona Airspeed both recently provided breaking news.

The NSL News covered the French plans for the running 2-year period until the next world meet in Tanay 2020 with the update on January 21st. The news from Belgium and Arizona do not really have a significant impact on the French plans, as national coach Mathieu Bernier has made the 8-way team highest priority. Mathieu Bernier still did not like the Airspeed news, as it may take some of the spice out of 4-way competition on the top of the world.

In the meantime, his own teams have started with their outdoor training. The 8-way lineup completed 55 training jumps in May, and the two 4-way teams in 4-way Open and 4-way Women had their opportunities at the beginning of the second 8-way training camp this week in Pamiers. They launched their outdoor season with 20 jumps each in the three days of 4-way training.

The 8-way team is now back in training action for a whole week in Pamiers. Mathieu Bernier hopes to complete a total of 400 jumps before traveling to Skydive Arizona for the FAI Outdoor World Cup 2019. The complete French Formation Skydiving delegation will travel to the United States again in March 2020 for the Shamrock Showdown in Florida.

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French 8-way outdoor lineup: Michel Laynaud - Clementine Le Bohec - Damien Gouriou - Christine Malnis - Kevin Mansion - Gaelle Giesen - Aurelien Lemaire - Sophia Pecout - Alban Rumolo

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Both national 4-way teams launched their outdoor training with the lineups as Mathieu Bernier had assigned them earlier to 4-way Open (Alban Rumolo, Aurélien Lemaire, Kévin Mansion, Damien Gouriou) and 4-way Women (Clémentine Le Bohec, Christine Malnis, Sophia Pecout, Gaëlle Giesen).

David Ricard is filming the 4-way Open Class team, Julie Fournier is on camera in 4-way Women.

The two 4-way lineups then joined forces for the week of 8-way training, with Michel Laynaud as the new team videographer. He has been filming the French 4-way Women teams since 2015.

Mathieu Bernier was happy with the starting point of the new 4-way Women lineup and with Gaëlle Giesen in the tail slot. She replaces Pamela Lissajoux who was in the outside center slot for the world champion lineup at the FAI World Meet 2018.

The team has new slot assignments, which follow somehow the way how the French national indoor team Weembi High Rollers managed their most recent engineering.

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French 4-way Women team at the FAI World Meet 2018 - Weembi High Rollers at the FAI Indoor World Meet 2019

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Christine Malnis and Sophia Pecout have been in their point (Christine Malnis) and tail (Sophia Pecout) slots since they were selected for the French national team in 4-way Women and won their first FAI gold medals in Prostejov 2014. They continued in the same slots when the lineups changed in 2015 and then again in 2016. They still won the FAI gold medals in Australia last year as point and tail.

It was only logical that Christine Malnis and Sophia Pecout were in the same slots for Weembi High Rollers, at least at the beginning. However, the High Rollers became more and more flexible with their engineering though and switched the slots of the piece partners (Julien Degen - front piece, Roy Janssen - rear piece) regularly.

Mathieu Bernier said that Christine Malnis and Sophia Pecout have now switched for good and have their A-slots in the center for the first time, Christine Malnis as outside and Sophia Pecout as inside center. Clementine Le Bohec is the new point, after her years as inside center for the rear piece, and new member Gaëlle Giesen has taken Sophia Pecout's tail slot.

Mathieu Bernier was pleased after the first 20 training jumps. He knows that it will be difficult to maintain the scoring level of Australia 2020 with the new lineup, new slot assignments, 8-way priority and double duties. However, his creative 2-year plan for the French Formation Skydiving delegation had a good start, and as the only FAI gold medalist in 4-way and 8-way at the same event (Menzelinsk 2010) he likes to try different ways: "We know it is a challenge, something 'dangerous' for the result in 4-way Women. But I don't like to become too comfortable with something that is 90% sure. It is life, it is funny, it is a game. Of course we have to be good a least..."