posted May 4th, 2022 - InTime's Claire King and Dirk Venter, who were first competing in 8-way at the Paraclete XP Indoor Championship 2022, then judging live at the Shamrock Showdown 2022 at Skydive City in Florida, followed by the judging job at the FAI Indoor World Cup 2022 in Belgium, were finally back home when it was time for the South African Outdoor Nationals.

It was once again the judging room where they spent their time at Skydive Pretoria, host of the national championships. Their own 4-way team, Jazz Republic, has attended only indoor meets since 2015.

One of their Jazz Republic team mates, Colin Rothman, eventually joined Savolo in 2018 for more outdoor training and competition, while he continued with Jazz Republic at indoor events. He has won the national championship title with Savolo four consecutive times since he joined South Africa's national 4-way team of many years, and Savolo defended the most recent title successfully at the end of April.

Training and competing with two 4-way teams was still not enough for Colin Rothman. He recruited a second lineup for the national outdoor championships and challenged himself and Savolo with Rothman's Special Mild in the AAA Class competition, together with former Savolo member Bailey Edmunds.

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South African Outdoor Nationals 2022		1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	Total	Avg
Rank	AAA Class	B,16,O,13	K,2,N,M	G,17,J,15	L,C,20,14	6,19,4	A,1,9	3,Q,11	P,F,22,8	18,E,D,12	7,21,H	Total	Avg
1	Savolo	14	18	12	12	15	18	14	12	11	13	139	13.9
2	Rothman's Special Mild	13	15	13	11	10	11	10	11	10	13	117	11.7

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Savolo - Rothman's Special Mild at the South African Outdoor Nationals 2022

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Of course, Rothman's Special Mild could only sign up as a guest team. However, his second lineup manged to win once (Round 3) and tie another round, even though he had no problem to fend off himself with Savolo, who ended up 22 points ahead after all ten rounds.

Savolo has not only won South Africa's national 4-way title with Colin Rothman in the lineup. Different Savolo lineups have been undefeated in South Africa since 2014.

Current member Amy Kirtland has been in the winning teams since the first victory in 2014. She and Alex Jordaan launched the Savolo team in 2012, together with Bailey Edmunds and Dirk Venter.

Warren Hitchcock has been in the winning camera slot since Savolo started in 2012, and he has won the same number of national 4-way titles as Amy Kirtland. He was also filming Amy Kirtland and Alex Jordaan for Savolo when they competed for South Africa at the world meets in Prostejov in 2014 and Skydive Chicago in 2016.

Savolo then missed the world meet in Australia 2018, where former Savolo member Bailey Edmunds represented South Africa with Meraki. No South African team competed at the FAI Tanay Mondial 2020.

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South African Outdoor Nationals 2022		1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	Total	Avg
Rank	AAA Class	B,16,O,13	K,2,N,M	G,17,J,15	L,C,20,14	6,19,4	A,1,9	3,Q,11	P,F,22,8	18,E,D,12	7,21,H	Total	Avg
3	Ascension	10	12	8	10	9	10	9	6	7	11	92	9.2
4	Aerium	10	13	8	4	9	10	9	10	9	9	91	9.1
5	SP-Arrows	8	12	8	8	8	6	7	10	8	10	85	8.5

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Ascension - Aerium - SP-Arrows at the South African Outdoor Nationals 2022

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Not only Colin Rothman's double duties at this year's national outdoor championship added an interesting aspect to the AAA Class leaderboard. Ascension and Aerium were back for their next 10-round 1-point battle, only on a higher scoring level. Ascension had won the silver medals last year by one single point (85 - 84) and were one point behind Aerium after Round 9 last month.

There was an additional new team on the AAA Class leaderboard, who wanted to be a part of the same competition for the official silver and bronze medals. SP-Arrows tied two of the highscores between the three teams and finished only six points behind the bronze medals.

On top of the exciting competition in the AAA Class, there was the same 1-point finish on the AA Class leaderboard. Two new South African 4-way teams battled it out over six rounds for a great start into 4-way competition. Aerium had started in the AA Class, as well, and won the 3-team competition in 2019 with 9.8 before moving up to AAA in 2021.

Only Buff-Fellow-Wings had the whole RRR Class leaderboard all for themselves...

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South African Outdoor Nationals 2022		1	2	3	4	5	6	Total	Avg
Rank	AA Class	P,4,15	J,6,9	C,E,2	F,G,N,M	A,21,D	O,Q,L,19	Total	Avg
1	Filthy Little Slots	3	6	7	11	5	8	40	6.7
2	Blockchain	3	7	7	10	6	6	39	6.5
Rank	Rookie	G,Q,C	N,J,H	F,K,O	L,B,E	A,D,M	P,B,E	Total	Avg
1	Buff-Fellow-Wings	5	5	4	4	3	6	27	4.5

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