posted Feb 25th, 2023 - It was not too long ago when the NSL News was asking Qatar coaches Gary Smith and Luc Verstrepen for their review and evaluation of the FAI Outdoor World Championship 2022, primarily related to the teams of the Qatar delegation.

Qatar Falcons won their second consecutive FAI 8-way silver medals, and the Qatar Tigers added a set of bronze medals in 4-way Open, also consecutively after the 3rd place at the FAI Tanay Mondial. The previous NSL Live Talk was recorded on the Zoom online platform on January 24th. Gary Smith and Luc Verstrepen were at Weembi Lille in France for indoor training with their teams, the Qatar Cheetahs and Lions, and they provided the first insights of the new Qatar plan with the two “farm teams”.

Conversations with the highly experienced former 4-way competitors and current coaches have been a part of NSL Live Talk and NSL Coaches Corners for many years. Evaluations of the world championships, world cups and other top events were not always directly connected to the Qatar delegation. However, the heavy investment of the Qatar delegation into their Formation Skydiving teams and their coaches has shown results, and a discussion of the medal contenders in the two traditional events, 4-way Open and 8-way Open, has naturally included teams from Qatar in the most recent history of Formation Skydiving competition.

The NSL News covered the results of the Paraclete XP Indoor Championship 2023 with the update on February 22nd. Both national teams from Qatar, Falcons and Tigers, were guest teams at the national indoor championships, where they met their direct opponents from the United States, Arizona Airspeed and XPGK, both reigning world champions in the respective events.

FAI Outdoor World Meet 2022			1		2		3		4		5		6		7		8		9		10		Total	Avg
Rank	4-way Open/Women Top 10		20,16,B		P,D,21,13		17,K,11		E,A,19,22		2,9,M		C,14,F,12		3,6,18		4,10,1		8,Q,O,H		5,7,J		Total	Avg
1	Arizona Airspeed	US	21	-1	28		27		27		31		23		21		20		32		31		261	26.1
2	NMP-PCH Hayabusa	BE	20	-1	25	-2	21		23		28		20	-2	19		17		29		26		228	22.8
3	Qatar Tigers	QA	19	-2	23	-1	22	-1	21	-1	26		18		17	-1	17		28		28		219	21.9
4	France 4-way Open	FR	19		23	-1	22		23		27		20	-1	18		15	-1	20	-5	27	-1	214	21.4

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Arizona Airspeed - NMP PCH HayaBusa - Qatar Tigers - France at the at the FAI Outdoor World Championship 2022 - Video Footage Courtesy of FAI/InTime/Omniskore

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The next NSL Live Talk with Gary Smith and Luc Verstrepen took place a few days ago in Zephyrhills, where the two new lineups of the Qatar Cheetahs and Lions conducted their first outdoor training after the recent scramble of their rosters.

The coaches shared their first impressions with the NSL News, who continued the road trip later to visit the Qatar Tigers at their own training camp at Jump Florida in Lake Wales. The Tigers are in their final preparations for the Shamrock Showdown, where they will meet the same three opponents who they battled with at the outdoor world championship in Eloy last October, Arizona Airspeed, NMP PCH HayaBusa, France.

The conversation with Gary Smith and Luc Verstrepen included a large part with a preview of the upcoming outdoor competition at Skydive DeLand. It is a very interesting situation that defines the starting point in the new 2-year cycle until the next outdoor world championship in Israel 2024.

Arizona Airspeed will try to at least maintain the unprecedented top spot that they took in Eloy, with sole highscores in all ten rounds. The French national team has the opportunity to move back up to a medal position, which NMP PCH HayaBusa and Qatar Tigers will vehemently try to defend. Fact is that one of the four teams will end up empty-handed in any of the coming meets that they all attend together. The next one after the Shamrock Showdown outdoor competition will be the indoor world championship in Slovakia in April...

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NSL Live Talk with Qatar coaches Gary Smith and Luc Verstrepen on 24 February 2023

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