posted Feb 10th, 2021 - The NSL News posted new competition videos of the Qatar Tigers a few days ago. They came from a military CISM event in Qatar, where a few teams used the new skydiving facilities for a test run. Round 8 was missing at that time, and the video has now been added, after the competition was completed with the last official round.

Tigers coach Gary Smith was at the competition site, as well, and the NSL News used the opportunity for an update with a new NSL Live Talk conversation. Gary Smith also recorded a few scenes of the competition site on the last day, which was prepared for the award ceremony.

He evaluated the performance of the Qatar Tigers for the NSL News audience and explained more details of the CISM competition format during the conversation.

Jeremie Rollett, coach of the Qatar Falcons 8-way team, was the meet director for the event, and Luc Verstrepen was at the competition, as well. He and Marin Ferre are working with the other two teams in Qatar's Formation Skydiving delegation, the Lions and the Cheetas.

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Qatar International 2021			1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	Total	Avg
Rank	4-way Men		M,J,17,P	M,Q,C,11	M,21,N,F	M,H,B,10	M,19,A,L	M,(15),G,4	M,D,K,14	M,22,O,E	Total	Avg
1	Qatar Tigers	QA	36	30(-1)	37	28(-1)	30(-1)	28(-1)	24(-1)	30	243	30.4
2	Bundeswehr	DE	31	25	26(-1)	28(-1)	26	24	25	22(-2)	207	25.9
3	Morocco	MA	23(-3)	24	26	23(-1)	22(-1)	20(-4)	15(-5)	20(-2)	173	21.6
4	Austria	AU	11(-3)	9(-3)	16	14(-2)	10(-3)	6(-7)	13	14	93	11.6

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Rounds 1 - 8 of the Qatar Tigers at the CISM Competition in Qatar

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Gary Smith said that the event was a test for the CISM military world championship, which will also be hosted by Qatar in November. Jeremie Rollett will be back as the meet director, as CISM events don't include 8-way competition.

Lions and the Cheetas did not have scores on the official leaderboard. However, Gary Smith said that they were also jumping for other demonstration purposes at the same event.

The CISM world championship in November will only have the military national teams on the leaderboard, as well. NMP PCH HayaBusa are the reigning military world champions and will try to defend the title if they are able to travel again at the end of the year.

Gary Smith has also been coaching the 4-way world champions from Belgium, and he said that they have not been training since October 2020, neither indoors not outdoors.

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NSL Live Talk with Gary Smith - Competition Site in Qatar

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His evaluation of the eight competition rounds included the details of the military 4-way format. It was interesting to learn that slot-switchers do not have such a heavy impact on training the whole CISM dive pool, as it is necessary for the FAI/ISC format.

Gary Smith explained that slot-switchers in the CISM dive pool (Block 17, Block 10 in the current draw) don't force teams to learn the B-slots for all other blocks.

Each CISM sequence includes only one block, plus three random formations, including the Star (M), first as the exit formation, and then on each following page.

This format requires the teams only to be familiar with the B-slots of all random formations, not for the other blocks in the dive pool. World-class 4-way teams, like NMP PCH HayaBusa, Qatar Tigers, Swiss Airheads, are almost on a 4-way vacation when they attend CISM events.

Gary Smith said that the Tigers became a little bit "sloppy" when they had worked out a significant lead over the German Bundeswehr team. However, they finished in style with a top performance in the last round, which is now available for reviews...