posted Sep 3rd, 2009 - the French teams talked about their strong performances

The scores for Round 8 in 8-way did not change much at all. All five teams are now so far away from each other that the leaderboard will most likely be the same after ten rounds. Russia's Crystal Contour lineup distanced itself by seven points from Spain, and the combination of the two Russian 4-way teams is getting stronger round by round.

There seems to be a chance that this lineup might continue in 2010. Russia has not had a world class 8-way team ever since Evolution Pro discontinued after the World Meet 2004 in Croatia. Russia won two 8-way gold medals in 2001 and 2003 before several of the 8-way world champions switched to the 4-way event.

Next year's World Championship of Formation Skydiving will be hosted by Russia, and it would be surprising if Russia would not have world class teams in each event on her home turf.

The NSL Talk with French national coach Jerome David, 4-way coach Marin Ferre, 4-way team captain Sophie Deremaux, 8-way team captain Clement Martin St. Leon and 4-way and 8-way competitor Mathieu Bernier has now been uploaded.

Coaches and competitors explain why the 4-way teams are already so much stronger compared to the 2008 season. Marin Ferre has specific orders for his team, which seem to work out very well. Sophie Deremaux hopes that her team will score higher than 20.0 average after ten rounds.

Mathieu Bernier said that he always wanted to train and compete in both events. He explains how he manages to do this, and he says that training in both events is more challenging than competing.

The NSL-TV camera captured another NSL Talk with Russian competitors later. Team members of Kaktus Hunter (Katya Kharitonova and Andrei Kharitonov), Crossroads (Dmitry Fridman) and Black Cat (Alexander Kvochur) chatted for a little while.

A big commotion started when the French 8-way team landed after Round 7. Team videographer Sylvain Girault let the Fun Flag REALLY fly. He dropped it from his parachute, and the crowd turned crazy. The NSL-TV camera was turned on and captured the whole affair.

The NSL News has most of the details. It was a wild day for the Fun Flag, and the story will follow soon.