posted Aug 5th, 2019 - The 8-way situation in France has been NSL News topic for a while. It became relevant when France missed an FAI World Championship of Formation Skydiving for the first time in history in Australia 2018.

At the same time, 8-way training and competition became more appealing in France. Martial Ferre and Damien Sorlin, both former French 8-way world champions, began recruiting and organizing their own 8-way lineups years ago, mostly for indoor training and competition.

Julien Degen and Bruno Perin, both also former French 8-way world champions, added to the new 8-way momentum when Weembi Lille with its 16-foot flying chamber opened doors. They scheduled 8-way events and supported 8-way teams at their new indoor facilities.

National coach Mathieu Bernier, team mate of the above mentioned French 8-way experts, eventually followed up with new 8-way plans for the French national team after the first world meet without 8-way medals for France. In fact, he gave 8-way the highest priority, at least for the 2-year time period between Australia 2018 and Tanay 2020.

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French Outdoor Nationals 2019		1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	Total	Avg
Rank	8-way Open	14,9,P	K,5,16	D,13,Q,7	1,21,O	22,E,18	N,G,10,B	19,8,17	M,15,11	3,H,F,4	Total	Avg
1	Mojo Pamiers	9	13	12	10	11	11	8	11	9	94	10.4
2	Weembi Girls Lille Bondues	10	10	8	9	6	6	8	9	13	79	8.8
3	TukTuk Pamiers	8	10	8	9	5	8	6	10	9	73	8.1
4	After 8 Weembi Maubeuge	1	7	8	9	7	8	5	7	6	58	6.4
5	The Outsiders 8 Lille Bondues	6	5	2	2	6	7	2	7	8	45	5.0
5	ASPU Maubeuge	6	8	2	3	3	5	5	8	5	45	5.0
7	Vive la chute Weembi	5	7	5	1	3	4	3	6	4	38	4.2
8	Les 9 à la Coque Lille Bondues	5	3	2	6	3	0	4	4	2	29	3.2
9	HuitGees Tarbes	4	1	2	2	4	2	4	3	5	27	3.0
10	FlyPonots	3	3	4	1	3	3	3	3	2	25	2.8

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The first results were showing at the FAI Indoor World Meet 2019 where the new French 8-way indoor lineup won the silver medals and set a new indoor world record with the 44-pointer in Round 6.

Mathieu Bernier also recruited a new and very young national 8-way team that consists of the two national 4-way teams, who join forces for the 8-way project, and their priority is officially set on 8-way competition.

It seems to be a contradiction that the new French national 8-way team did not compete at the French national outdoor championship, which was scheduled to be completed today. Both national 4-way teams in 4-way Open and 4-way Women attended the competition and posted their second set of 2019 scores with little training this year, while their joint 8-way lineup was not on the leaderboard.

However, national coach Mathieu Bernier had a plan behind this situation, and it resulted in the highest 8-way participation at French national championships in the NSL News records. The number of 8-way teams was actually higher than in 4-way.

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The national 8-way team did not attend, after a very intensive training agenda this year. However, all team members still competed in 8-way, where they were guiding the ten other teams through the meet with their freshly acquired 8-way expertise.

The winning team, Mojo Pamiers, did not need a member of the current 8-way team. They had Emmanuel Sarrazin in the lineup, the most experienced French 8-way competitor in history. The Mojo lineup also included two Odin Parachute System members (Arnaud Camproux, Maxime Lacourt) who won the bronze medals in 4-way.

Sophia Pecout and national 8-way videographer Michel Laynaud competed with the Weembi Girls 8-way team, who also had Julie Fournier in the active lineup. She was filming the French national team in 4-way Women at the same time.

Gaelle Giesen and Aurélien Lemaire finished in 3rd place with TukTuk Pamiers, while After 8 Weembi Maubeuge were all on their own, except for Michel Laynaud with his second video assignment. Young Alban Rumolo helped The Outsiders 8 Lille Bondues, and his 4-way Open videographer team mate David Ricard was filming 8-way this time. Clementine le Bohec competed with ASPU Maubeuge, Christine Malnis with Vive la Chute Weembi, together with Bruno Perin. Damien Gouriou was in the Les 9 à la Coque Lille Bondues lineup, Kevin Mansion with HuitGees Tarbes, together with his former 4-way team mate Charles Rommel. The FlyPonots 8-way lineup had no active 8-way help and ended up at the bottom of the leaderboard...