posted Sep 12th, 2021 - The next Formation Skydiving competition thriller happened at the national outdoor championships in Poland. The 4-way and 8-way fans really had their fill of very exciting meets this year, which made it somehow easier to deal with the frustrations of the seemingly never-ending corona virus crisis.

The series of nerve-wrecking competition began with the highly anticipated 8-way battle for the world's top spot at the FAI Tanay Mondial 2020. The same event also featured the 2-point upset in 4-way Women, where the Russian Bubbles dethroned the French world champions of 2018.

The same event included a drama in the race for the FAI bronze medals in 4-way Women that was eventually concluded in the conference room of the judges and the jury.

Then came the British drama at the national championships, where not even an extra jump-off round could break the tie between NFTO and Chimera. Once again, the winner had to be found in the rules book, this time without controversy. It was still not the end, as Germany's Oceanside AtomiX and Airbus Illertissen had their own dramatic finish of the national championships in the Super Sequence of Round 10.

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FAI Tanay Mondial 2020			1		2		3		4		5		6		Total	Avg
Rank	4-way Women		O,19,Q,5		17,B,E,P		H,15,12		M,N,7,F		K,L,C,4		J,18,16		Total	Avg
1	Bubbles	RU	21	-1	33	-3	18	-1	33	-3	27		18	-2	150	25.0
2	Aerodyne Maubeuge	FR	24		27	-4	18		34		24	-2	21		148	24.7
3	No Mercy	PL	15		20	-1	11	-1	20	-2	16		11		93	15.5
4	Aviatrixx	US	15		25		13		14		0		12	-1	79	13.2

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No Mercy (Poland) and Aviatrixx (United States) at the FAI Tanay Mondial 2020

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One of the involved teams at the mentioned events went through the next most exciting finish of a 4-way competition just a few weeks after the previous experience. The Polish FAI bronze medal winners of the 4-way Women competition in Tanay, No Mercy, were facing their strongest domestic opponent, FlySpot Sky4Four, at the national outdoor championships.

The Polish Nationals 2021 were very meaningful, as it was a comeback for the country's 4-way outdoor competition. The last national outdoor championships were held in 2014 where No Mercy and Sky4Four both competed with their first lineups, which included Irishman Gordon Hodgkinson for Sky4Four.

It did not become much easier for No Mercy on home turf, compared to the drama at the world meet. FlySpot Sky4Four is a well trained team, with three of the original team members of 2015 (Anna Baranski, Michal Baranski, Zbigniew Kordzikowski) still in the current lineup.

No Mercy know each other even better, as all original members of 2014 (Kinga Komorowska, Karina Laszuk, Iwona Raczkiewicz, Maja Wazniewicz) competed in Tanay and at the national championships, with Mariusz Pawlowski on camera.

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Polish Outdoor Nationals 2021		1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	Total	Avg
Rank	AAA Class	N,8,14	10,P,L,20	A,H,O,16	M,J,Q,18	19,2,7	E,5,6	9,4,K	17,3,F	C,12,D,15	11,21,13	Total	Avg
1	FlySpot Sky4Four	14	12	16	18	15	16	16	16	14	13	150	15.0
2	No Mercy	12	13	19	16	14	15	17	17	13	13	149	14.9
3	MAD Team	10	10	18	18	9	9	12	13	10	9	118	11.8
4	Flyspot Omega	9	11	15	12	11	11	12	13	9	9	112	11.2
5	Crazy Donut	8	7	8	14	5	11	11	8	8	9	89	8.9
6	Bitches from Hell	6	4	9	7	4	6	7	4	6	6	59	5.9

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Sky4Four at the Polish Outdoor Nationals 2021

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The Polish 4-way teams have been training and competing regularly and intensively at indoor events in the past years. Poland even hosted the FAI Indoor World Cup 2016 at Flyspot Warszaw. The national teams in 4-way Open (FlySpot Sky4Four) and 4-way Women (No Mercy) have also attended outdoor world meets and world cups.

SkyDive Warszaw, now with two Cessna Caravans available, was eventually ready to organize national championships this year. FlySpot Sky4Four member Michal Baranski said that the skydiving center also wanted to use the event to learn and collect hosting experiences, possibly even for other high-profile events in the future.

The weather was not perfect for the event, and the training day was rained out completely. The meet began with the official training jump and the first two competition rounds on Wednesday, before strong winds interfered throughout the whole meet. However, the 10-round meet was still completed and featured the exciting 1-point battle.

The competition pressure generated the highest 10-round average in history by a team from Poland. No Mercy had a 15.5 average after Round 6 at the world meet in Tanay, and Sky4Four finished with 15.0 after Round 10 in Poland. The new 4-way champions plan to improve the record average soon at the 6th DIPC in December. Coach David Grauwels will compete at the same event with the reigning 4-way world champions from Belgium.