posted Apr 6th, 2022 - The opening ceremony of the FAI Indoor World Cup 2022 followed the official speed test flying sessions later in the afternoon at the event site. It started with a miniature rock concert by a 2-boy band, with an electric guitar and percussion, which fit perfectly to the 4-way Junior event, even though the youngest 4-way competitors were still several years older than the musicians.

The crowd of participants split into three groups after the opening ceremony for the event briefings, and for the competition draw in Formation Skydiving competition. Chief Judge Wolfgang Duller from Austria supervised the manual competition draw, which took place on the creeper pad podium.

As usual, the 40 teams went straight to performance preparations, and they had to share the creeping area and the two sets of creepers. Weembi Lille operator and co-owner Julien Degen avoided the waiting time for his team, St Flow Weembi, by bringing his own set of creepers to Airspace Charleroi.

Gary Smith has plenty of time at the event for a change, as the Qatar Tigers cannot attend the event due to their Ramadan break, and NMP PCH HayaBusa is currently sufficient enough until they are back to the same performance level that they created together with their coach.

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Opening Ceremony and Competition Draw of the FAI Indoor World Cup at Airspace Charleroi

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The NSL Live Talk with Gary Smith took place at the creeping area, where the teams would still be busy for a while after the competition draw. Four rounds are scheduled for Thursday, beginning at 8.00 o'clock in the morning. The next set of four rounds follows on Friday before semifinals and finals conclude the competition on Saturday.

Thursday might be the most important day, as Gary Smith explained. The meet begins with an average sequence that does not have the potential to separate the opposing teams by much. This changes dramatically in Round 2, which offers almost a real Super Sequence (L,C,F,9) to the teams to boost their averages - or separate them early in the meet.

Round 2 is followed by another sequence on the easier side, before Round 4 will have the next scoring opportunity for the teams who like fast sequences and know how to master them. Any major mistakes in these early rounds on Thursday can have a severe impact on the outcome of the whole meet.

Most of the following four rounds on Friday and the last two ones on Saturday may not change much in the rankings any longer. The situation on Thursday evening will be a very important milestone on the way to medals.

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NSL Live Talk with Gary Smith

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