posted Jan 31st, 2022 - The recent updates from France covered the plans that national coach Mathieu Bernier has for his indoor delegation at the FAI Indoor World Cup in Charleroi, Belgium, this April. The former and current 4-way juniors of the Aerokart Monaco Ak'demie project are playing a major role in his planning.

The members of new national indoor team in 4-way Open are also jumping from planes by now, as the NSL News reported on January 26th. In fact, they won the national AA Class championship title in 2020 and added the AAA Class bronze medals last year. However, Mathieu Bernier has different plans for outdoor competition in 2022 that he will announce soon.

The same counts for his national 8-way lineup for the 2022 season. His new strategy will surely be different than in 2020/2021 when both national 4-way teams, 4-way Open and 4-way Women, joined forces for the strong French 8-way team that ended up in 2nd place at the FAI Tanay Mondial 2020 after the seven completed rounds.

Mathieu Bernier confirmed the new 4-way Women lineup for the NSL News on January 23rd and explained that Pamela Lissajoux, Gaelle Giesen, Elise Poindron and Jessica Thebault will represent France at the indoor and outdoor events both, with Matthieu Roux on camera for outdoor training and competition.

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FAI Indoor World Meet 2019			1		2		3		4		5		6		7		8		9		10		Total	Avg
Rank	4-way Women		M,K,D,14		Q,4,5		P,E,9,15		3,N,G,2		6,1,8		F,12,11		13,22,J		H,L,B,18		O,20,A,17		21,7,19		Total	Avg
1	Nephtys Weembi	FR	34		27		35		25		23		25		23		33	-1	31		24		280	28.0
2	NFTO	UK	34		26	-1	34		28	-1	23		24		24		34		28	-1	23	-2	278	27.8
3	XPG4	US	34		26		33		24		21	-1	24		24		28	-4	25		23		262	26.2
4	Bubble Hubble	RU	29	-2	25	-2	33		24	-1	22		23		22		31		25		21	-2	255	25.5
5	China	CN	31	-3	26	-1	31		22	-2	23		24		22	-1	30	-3	22	-3	23	-2	254	25.4
6	Team X	SE	26		25		28	-1	24		20		22		23		28	-1	24		23		243	24.3
7	No Mercy	PL	29		22		25	-1	21		19		17	-1	21		23	-5	20	-1	22		219	21.9
8	Skynamite	DE	28	-1	20	-2	26		20		17	-1	17	-2	19		26		18	-2	19	-2	210	21.0
9	Voss Vind Girls	NO	27	-2	22		24	-1	18	-1	18		19		20		23	-1	19	-1	19		209	20.9

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Nephtys Weembi - NFTO - XPG4 - Bubbles at the FAI Indoor World Meet 2019

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The French 4-way Women team will not have the double-duties in 4-way and 8-way any longer, which increased the difficulty of winning gold medals in both events significantly last year. However, only the 4-way indoor and outdoor environments have also become much more specialized in the past years, and competing in both events requires additional attention, as well.

At least dive pool, rules and techniques are at least very similar for indoor and outdoor competition, and most of the 4-way teams are using the numerous windtunnels across the planet as training tools. Most of them attend indoor competitions, as well.

Only the 4-way juniors are limited to indoor training and competition at the beginnings of their 4-way careers, even though there is also an increasing number of senior 4-way competitors who specialize only on indoor training and competition.

In fact, the second best indoor 4-way team in history, the Weembi High Rollers, did not attend a single outdoor competition with their indoor team, even though each team member was an outdoor 4-way world champion, either in 4-way Open (Julien Degen, Roy Janssen) or in 4-way Women (Sophia Pecout, Christine Malnis).

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FAI World Meet 2019			1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	Total	Avg
Rank	4-way Open		M,K,D,14	Q,4,5	P,E,9,15	3,N,G,2	6,1,8	F,12,11	13,22,J	H,L,B,18	O,20,A,17	21,7,19	Total	Avg
1	NMP-PCH Hayabusa	BE	39	36	42	35	27	32	29	42	38	31	351	35.1
2	Weembi High Rollers	FR	38	33	44	32	27	29	26	47	37	31	344	34.4
3	Arizona Airspeed	US	39	33	40	30	27	29	24	39	33	27	321	32.1
4	Qatar Tigers	QA	34	30	36	29	22	27	28	36	32	28	302	30.2
5	Airheads	CH	35	28	33	29	25	27	24	36	30	25	292	29.2
6	Black Cat	RU	34	29	39	29	25	22	25	36	26	22	287	28.7
7	Echochamber	SE	34	27	35	26	22	25	20	35	26	24	274	27.4
8	ACM Weembi	UK	32	28	32	26	20	24	19	35	26	25	267	26.7
9	Airfource	DE	33	22	33	25	22	23	20	35	25	24	262	26.2
10	HF Flying Circus	CZ	31	26	28	23	24	22	18	33	19	23	247	24.7

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NMP PCH HayaBusa - Weembi High Rollers at the FAI Indoor World Meet 2019

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The new French national team in 4-way Women will be in the same situation as their main opponents in this FAI/ISC event. The world's strongest teams in 4-way Women have been competing in 4-way indoor and 4-way outdoor both.

The new 4-way Women outdoor world champions, Bubbles from Russia, have been one of the regular medal winners at 4-way indoor events at the same time. Bubbles attended two indoor meets last year (28.4 - 29.6) and finished in 4th place of all 4-way teams in the world in the NSL Rankings of 2021.

Bubbles missed a medal position with the previous lineup at the FAI Indoor World Meet 2019, where Nephtys Weembi (France), NFTO (United Kingdom) and XPG4 (United States) were on the podium. The same three medal winners of 2019 will probably be back in Charleroi, and they also train and compete in indoor and outdoor 4-way both, with the new French lineup now joining the indoor/outdoor combination.

There is only one 4-way Women team that specializes only on indoor training and competition at this point in time. As their former male French 4-way junior opponents, the HF Cubs have also started with their outdoor training, while they still compete only as the national indoor team at FAI/ISC events. However, all 4-way top contenders have the option to start the 2022 season with indoor training and switch to outdoor training for the next world meet in Eloy later. The Czech team has caught up to the indoor scoring level of medal positions in 2019, while Bubbles are probably defining the top level this year – at indoor and outdoor events...