posted Feb 17th, 2021 - The story of the 4-way Women event began shortly after Dawn English became the first female 4-way competitor winning an FAI gold medal in the Open Class competition. It was the FAI World Cup 1998 where she outscored the best 4-way Open Class teams in the world with Space Center FX.

Joey Jones was her team mate (Doug Park, Christopher Irwin, Fin Malloy on camera), who she saw as her freefall mentor: "I've had great mentors too - I've been really blessed. On the ground my mentor has been my business partner of nearly fifteen years, Dan Thompson. I wouldn't be where I am today without him. In the air I'd have to say my piece partner, Joey Jones, has had the largest influence on my skydiving. I can't imagine having flown with someone else."

Lise Aune-Nansen won bronze medals with the DeLand Norgies at the same event. She almost joined the latest NSL Live Talk conversation that was recorded on Monday and had the 4-way Women event as the main topic. Joey Jones discussed the event and its history with his wife Lena Jones (Bostrom), who competed at the same event with the Swedish team 4 Pleasure.

Eliana Rodriguez completed the NSL Live Talk with her presence and memories. She was not in a 4-way team yet when Lena and Joey Jones competed in Portugal and posted their scores on the same 4-way Open Class leaderboard.

---

FAI World Cup 1998			1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	Total	Avg
Rank	4-way Open		10,19,2	21,M,A,23	8,H,P,L	D,13,21	6,3,G	F,12,22	5,Q,15	17,4,O	J,E,7,9	14,N,K,16	B,C,1,18	Total	Avg
1	Space Center FX	US	17	20	24	19	17	17	17	21	28	18	22	198	19.8
2	Perris Maubeuge	FR	17	20	22	18	19	16	19	21	29	17	20	198	19.8
3	DeLand Norgies	NO	15	17	21	17	18	14	17	18	26	17	-	180	18.0
4	Russia	RU	15	19	21	15	17	14	16	19	26	15	-	177	17.7
5	Sebastian XL	UK	15	18	21	16	17	14	16	18	20	17	-	172	17.2
6	Golden Knights	US	14	18	19	16	16	14	15	18	25	16	-	171	17.1
7	Elsinore Storm	US	13	17	20	16	16	14	15	18	24	15	-	168	16.8
8	Velox	SE	15	17	19	15	16	13	14	16	23	14	-	162	16.2
9	Red Bull	ES	13	14	18	16	14	10	13	17	21	13	-	149	14.9
10	Daedalus	DE	13	14	16	12	14	12	13	15	23	-	-	132	14.7
11	Italy	IT	13	13	13	17	12	9	13	13	23	-	-	126	14.0
11	Redline	AU	11	15	16	13	11	12	12	15	21	-	-	126	14.0
13	NMPV	BE	13	14	15	14	12	11	13	12	16	-	-	120	13.3
14	Hungary	HU	9	12	13	12	11	12	11	16	19	-	-	115	12.8
14	4 Pleasure	SE	11	11	12	12	11	9	10	13	16	10	-	115	11.5
16	S. Aurora	AU	11	12	11	8	10	9	11	12	16	11	-	111	11.1
17	Russian Women	RU	11	12	11	10	11	10	7	9	11	16	-	108	10.8
17	Luxemburg	LU	10	12	14	12	13	10	11	11	15	-	-	108	12.0
19	XCEED	DK	10	11	12	10	12	10	11	12	-	-	-	88	11.0
20	Netherlands	NL	10	10	11	12	11	10	9	12	-	-	-	85	10.6
21	Hardline	AU	11	12	11	10	10	7	9	14	-	-	-	84	10.5
22	J5	ZA	11	8	13	11	11	11	9	9	-	-	-	83	10.4
23	Kusadasi	ES	10	12	12	11	11	8	9	9	-	-	-	82	10.3
24	British Army	UK	10	11	12	10	11	9	9	9	-	-	-	81	10.1
25	Lithuania	LT	9	10	10	10	8	8	2	12	-	-	-	69	8.6
26	Passion8	US	8	10	6	9	9	6	6	5	-	-	-	59	7.4
27	ACUL	PT	6	7	10	8	6	7	6	8	-	-	-	58	7.3
28	Slovakia	SK	7	7	7	8	7	4	8	7	-	-	-	55	6.9
29	Israel	IL	9	5	8	9	3	3	6	9	-	-	-	52	6.5
30	Porta Ravesa	PT	5	3	6	7	7	6	7	8	-	-	-	49	6.1
31	BAI/CTAP	PT	1	4	6	2	4	5	1	5	-	-	-	28	3.5
32	Cyprus	CY	1	5	4	2	5	3	0	4	-	-	-	24	3.0

---

NSL Live Talk with Eliana Rodriguez, Lena and Joey Jones

---

Lena Jones said that she and her Swedish all-female team mates were not interested in a separate 4-way Women competition at all at that time. They enjoyed the mix of all-female and all-male lineups and additional female 4-way competitors who trained and competed with mixed-gender lineups.

A total of four all-female teams competed at the first event where FAI/ISC paid special attention to the potential for a new event in Formation Skydiving competition. All four teams appeared on the 4-way Open Class leaderboard, while they still had a special privilege.

The four 4-way Women teams were allowed to complete all ten rounds, even though all other teams completed only eight rounds and then had to qualify for semifinals (Round 9) and finals (Round 10).

The meet was over for half of the total number of teams after Round 8, and two 4-way Women teams actually made the first cut (4 Pleasure, Southern Aurora). The next half of all semifinalists then performed Round 10 after the second cut, together with three of the four 4-way Women teams.

Joey Jones said that this was the event where he met his future wife for the first time. It was obviously a very successful and memorable meet for him.

---

Women Cup 1999			1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	Total	Avg
Rank	4-way Women		9,24,A	O,M,2,Q	14,P,11	19,3,15	N,8,12	C,1,E,20	K,23,17	B,16,21	L,22,J,7	G,5,6	Total	Avg
1	V-Max	UK	13	15	10	8	9	12	11	12	13	11	114	11.4
2	Australia	AU	15	15	9	11	7	15	10	10	13	8	113	11.3
3	4 Pleasure	SE	13	16	11	5	12	9	9	12	13	10	110	11.0
4	New Zealand	NZ	8	10	6	6	6	6	5	4	8	7	66	6.6

---

A year later, FAI/IPC invited 4-way Women teams to the first event with a separate leaderboard, the FAI World Meet 1999 in Australia. 4 Pleasure had been the strongest 4-way Women team in Portugal 1998 and were now facing the strong British V-Max lineup and an Australian team on their home turf for an exciting 4-point battle between gold and bronze.

Eliana Rodriguez had entered the 4-way world at that time, while working as one of the first wind-tunnel instructors at SkyVenture Orlando. Future Arizona Airspeed 4-way world champion Thomas Hughes, King of the Tuunel, was her fellow instructor, and they launched their world-champion careers together with DeLand Tunnel Rage.

It took another year and another world cup before the 4-way Women event eventually became a fully integrated part of the FAI World Championship of Formation Skydiving. Eliana Rodriguez had joined the U.S. team in 4-way Women, Synchronicity, in the meantime, which did not help Sweden's team at all to climb higher in the rankings. Synchronicity won the world cup gold medals in 2000 and were back a year later for the first official world meet in 4-way Women.

Joey Jones was now coaching the U.S. team, and his wife Lena was still the alternate for Sweden. Both recalled the exciting battle during the NSL Live Talk. Eliana Rodriguez won her first FAI gold medal in Spain before she became the first female 4-way competitor with FAI world meet gold medals in 8-way Open (2004) and 4-way Open (2008). She is still the only competitor in the history of the sport with gold medals in three different events.

---

FAI World Meet 2001			1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	Total	Avg
Rank	4-way Women		8,19,24	A,L,22,H	E,10,D,11	21,6,4	B,18,C,14	G,5,20	2,1,16	M,K,12,9	15,23,P	O,17,Q,N	Total	Avg
1	Synchronicity	US	13	13	13	12	14	14	15	16	13	24	147	14.7
2	TNT	NO	13	15	15	13	13	12	13	15	13	22	144	14.4
3	4 Pleasure	SE	13	15	14	13	14	14	14	15	12	19	143	14.3
4	V-Max	UK	9	15	14	12	14	14	13	16	13	21	141	14.1
5	Russia	RU	11	11	12	12	9	12	12	13	11	12	115	11.5
6	South Africa	ZA	12	12	11	9	11	8	11	13	10	16	113	11.3
7	Italy	IT	10	10	11	9	5	11	11	9	11	-	87	9.7
8	Parat	DE	8	10	8	7	9	9	9	9	6	-	75	8.3
9	Spain	ES	4	7	6	4	8	6	4	9	5	-	53	5.9
10	Austria	AT	6	4	5	4	3	6	5	7	6	-	46	5.1

---