posted Sep 10th, 2021 - Round 10 at the German Outdoor Nationals 2021 lived up to the dramatic finish of the anticipated battle for the top spot between the reigning 4-way Open Class champions, Oceanside AtomiX, and the German national team of earlier years, Airbus Illertissen.

The third top contender, the Bardarbunga half of the national 8-way team, was also within striking distance after Round 9, as the scores of the last round were showing. Airbus won this one round by ten points over AtomiX. The same scores for different teams in Round 10 could have catapulted the 8-way experts to the 1st place, as well.

It was a disappointing finish for the defending champions. AtomiX had worked hard in the first nine rounds to create eventually a 4-point lead after Round 8, which shrank only by one point in Round 9. AtomiX still had a 3-point lead going into Round 10.

As much as it was disappointing for AtomiX, it was a glorious finish for the new German 4-way champion team. A slightly different engineering of the Super Sequence, which was not copied by any other team, created a significantly better flow and resulted in an unexpected advantage.

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German Outdoor Nationals 2021		1		2		3		4		5		6		7		8		9		10		Total	Avg
Rank	4-way Open	L,Q,2,8		K,19,N,13		17,12,20		C,3,1		6,M,11		14,9,O		22,15,16		G,18,21		J,10,H,7		B,F,D,E,A		Total	Avg
1	Airbus Illertissen	15	-1	17		13	-1	18		18	-1	17		13		14	-1	18		42		185	18.5
2	Oceanside AtomiX	14	-1	17	-1	15		17		19		19		13		15		17		32		178	17.8
3	Bardarbunga 3.0	16		17		15		15	-1	15	-1	18		13		14		18		30		171	17.1
4	Paranodon 4way Illertissen	15		14		11		13		15		14		9		11	-2	14	-1	30		146	14.6
5	NeVa FSZ Saar	11		15		12		13		14		13		11		9		15		21		134	13.4
6	Sudwest NOG	11		13		11		12		13		13		9		11		14		21		128	12.8
7	Phoenix	11		11		10		11		11		11		9		9		6		17		106	10.6
8	Das KO's Saar	10		6		7		10		11		9		7		9		11		20		100	10.0

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Airbus Illertissen - Oceanside AtomiX - Bardarbunga 3.0 at the German Outdoor Nationals 2021

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The NSL News mentioned on September 7th, after the first five rounds in Saarlouis, that the Super Sequence in Round 10 could have a very heavy impact on the leaderboard. However, a 10-point difference between the two best teams in Germany was even more than what seemed to be possible.

Airbus Illertissen peaked with the perfect timing. Most likely, a similar peak performance in any other round and an average performance in Round 10 would have generated a different outcome of the competition.

New Airbus member Felix Pfeiffer's 10-round performance, especially in his tail slot for Airbus in Round 10, was more than impressive. He had trained and competed only with one of the Paranodon Futura teams until he was recruited for the new Airbus lineup and moved up into the AAA Class world. The other Airbus members (Sarah Mertes, Thomas Mack, Alexander Prendinger, Andreas Troegele on camera) had started with their new lineup in 2019.

Oceanside AtomiX (Peter Ingenhaag, Paul Hofstee, Lars Naeve on camera) were in an even more challenging situation having to replace two members in the middle of the 2021 season. Airbus had the slight advantage of one meet experience with the new lineup, while the new AtomiX lineup launched their own competition career with Round 1 at the national championships. It was impressive enough that AtomiX were still ahead by three points after Round 9.

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German Outdoor Nationals 2021		1		2		3		4		5		6		7		8		9		10		Total	Avg
Rank	4-way Women	L,Q,2,8		K,19,N,13		17,12,20		C,3,1		6,M,11		14,9,O		22,15,16		G,18,21		J,10,H,7		B,F,D,E,A		Total	Avg
1	Meltemi Illertissen	15		15		11		14		17		16		11		12		15		29		155	15.5
2	Skynamite	14		13		12		15		16		12	-2	9	-1	11	-2	13	-1	28		143	14.3

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Meltemi Illertissen - Skynamite at the German Outdoor Nationals 2021

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The competition in 4-way Women promised a similar drama in Round 10 when the two teams in this category were separated by only two points at half-time. Germany is the only country where the federation separates the two official FAI/ISC events consequently on two different leaderboards.

Skynamite, Germany's national 4-way Women team of the past years, with only two returning team members, had to fend off a new team, Meltemi Illertissen, in the competition for the 4-way Women title and the status of the German national team in this category.

It turned out to be only a battle on the first 4-way day. Meltemi did not need the Super Sequence of Round 10 to win the 4-way Women competition. They were already 11 points ahead of Skynamite after Round 9 and added just another point to make it a 12-point advantage at the end of the meet.

There was actually a third all-female 4-way team at the national championships. However, the new Das KO's Saar lineup still registered for the competition on the AAA/Open Class leaderboard and ended up on the bottom of the leaderboard (10th), which would have been the 3rd place in 4-way Women...