posted Oct 15th, 2022 - The NSL News reported in earlier previews of the FAI Outdoor World Meet 2022 that two of the three events in Formation Skydiving competition, 8-way Open and 4-way Women, are matching the lowest number of participating countries in the history of the sport.

The lowest point was after the pandemic at the FAI Tanay Mondial, where a total of 23 countries sent teams to compete in the four Formation Skydiving events (4-way Open, 4-way Women, 4-way VFS, 8-way). The total of 35 teams this year is the lowest number since the inclusion of 4-way VFS in 2010.

There is also very good news though, as 4-way Open Class competition seems to be very resilient to any obstacles. The 21 participating national teams are only slightly lower compared to the average number (23.6) since 1985, which includes the average-boosting record participation (38) at the very popular events in Turkey 1997 and Dubai 2012.

The NSL News reported in the earlier previews that even the lower attendance in 8-way Open and 4-way Women will most likely still create exciting competition for some medal positions on both leaderboards. The 4-way competition promises the regular battles in all areas of the leaderboard that the Formation Skydiving competition community has become used to in the history of the sport.

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FAI Outdoor World Meet 2022			1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	Total	Avg
Rank	NSL Power Rankings 4-way Open		TBD	TBD	TBD	TBD	TBD	TBD	TBD	TBD	TBD	TBD	TBD	Total	Avg
1	Arizona Airspeed	US	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
2	NMP-PCH Hayabusa	BE	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
2	Qatar Tigers	QA	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
2	France 4-way Open	FR	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
5	Chimera	UK	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
5	Echochamber Oceanside	SE	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
5	Papea Masculino	ES	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
5	Airbus Oceanside Illertissen	DE	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
9	Ripper	AU	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
9	HF Flying Circus	CZ	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
9	Out of the Blue	NL	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
9	INIT-Y	BR	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
9	Agera FS 2022	NO	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
14	4Astrophe	CA	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
14	Sky4Four	PL	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
14	Sequenz	DK	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
17	HSV Red Bull Aerodynamix	AT	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
17	Adventure Flyers	PY	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
19	Equinox	LT	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
19	Tina & The Dinosaurs	NZ	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
19	La Playa	GT	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-

Participation at FAI Outdoor World Meets since 1985

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Only the very top spot in 4-way Open seems to be taken before the competition even begins. Arizona Airspeed has shown at several events that the new lineup is alone on their current performance level, which will not change before Round 1. This year, four members of the current lineup (Mikhail Markine, Joey Marshall, Chris Kuhlmann, Brendan Haddon on camera) will be rewarded with their first world championship 4-way title.

Niklas Hemlin already won his first 4-way gold medal in Dubai 2012 and added 8-way gold to his collection, together with Mikhail Markine and Chris Kuhlmann for Airspeed XP8 in Tanay last year.

The Airspeed dominance will not keep the other best three 4-way teams in the world (NMP PCH HayaBusa, Qatar Tigers, France) from pursuing the top spot nevertheless. In fact, the expected battle for the remaining two sets of FAI medals will probably push all three teams to show up with their best performances. One of the same three teams will leave Eloy without any medals.

A different French lineup ended up empty-handed in Tanay last year, where NMP PCH HayaBusa, SDC Rhythm XP and Qatar Tigers took the medal positions. The new French national team in 4-way Open are now facing the same lineup of the Qatar Tigers, while the reigning Belgian 4-way world champions compete with new member Neal Willems. The situation on the medal level behind Arizona Airspeed seems to be wide open.

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Kinetix at the FAI World Cup 2019 - Ripper/Real&In-Person at the Australian Outdoor Nationals 2022

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The situation behind the medal level is usually featuring the amateurs in the sport, even though there is a full-time team in this group of contenders for the 5th place. Papea Masculino is a military lineup and train for and compete at CISM World Championships, as well.

The competition for the 5th place is also a part of the Top 10 goal, and the teams behind the contenders for the 5th place will be ready to take advantage of weaker performances of teams ahead of them in the NSL Power Rankings. These five teams will push each other just as much as the medal contenders, and three of them will miss a Top 10 position after the expected close battle.

This group of Top 5 and Top 10 contenders will feature an interesting situation, where former team mates will be opponents this time. AnnMarie Jarzebowski, Sas Di Sciascio and Gary Nemirovsky were still team mates when they won the Australian national outdoor championships in 2021 with Kinetix.

AnnMarie Jarzebowski then went back to her Swedish roots and joined the country's national team of many years in 4-way Open, Echochamber. The new lineup won the national championships in Sweden a few months after AnnMarie Jarzebowski had won with Kinetix in Australia. Sas Di Sciascio and Gary Nemirovsky are back with a new team and compete with Ripper (Riss Anderson, Rob Thompson, Stephen Hickson on camera) for Australia.