posted Jul 3rd, 2005 - The last NSL News story covering the eligibility status of Pete Allum and the Italian national 4-way team Sinapsi PD was posted on June 14. The story included links to previous articles on the same topic.

Not much has changed in the meantime. As reported, the Italian Aeroclub has filed an appeal to the official FAI/IPC decision, while the team has continued with the original plans. These plans included Sinapsi's attendance at the Malevsky Memorial Cup 2005. The Italian team has already been at the competition site in Russia for a week and is ready for the first round tomorrow morning.

Unfortunately for the team, Sinapsi PD is officially registered as a guest team only. This means that Sinapsi can neither win FAI medals of the FAI Anton Malevsky Memorial International Cup nor of the 2005 Open European Championship of Formation Skydiving. In addition, Sinapsi is also excluded from the run for the cash prizes.

However, the team has not become discouraged yet. To the contrary, the new line-up with Peter Allum (Tail), Arianna de Benedetti (Center Outside), Livio Piccolo (Point), Luca Poretti (Center Inside) and Luca Marchioro (Video) is even more motivated to be highly competitive here in Russia.

The intensity of the Sinapsi training can currently be seen in Arianna de Benedetti's face. A recent training jump with the Snowflake of Block 1 as the exit formation ended up with a painful experience for the team's center outside. She hit the rear frame of the door with her helmet when she had to dive from the inside center position for this specific exit. The results of this collision still show as of today. However, it could not stop the team from moving on.

Back to the eligibility status of Sinapsi's new tail, Pete Allum, the last one of three previous NSL News stories still did not complete the coverage of the whole issue. In fact, the very beginning of the story and the original problem of the current situation has not been looked at yet.

The "3-year rule" of the FAI had never been a serious issue, in the past and before the Sinapsi PD case came up, for a very simple reason. The cycle of the world championships made the "time out" for a candidate of this rule practically a 4-year period.

The world championships were always held in a 2-year cycle on the odd years (...1991, 1993, 1995, 1997...) until the International Parachuting Commission (IPC) decided to change this cycle for certain reasons.

The 4-year cycle before this change began when an international competitor attended the last world championship for the first nation (1991, for example). If the same competitor wanted to compete for a different nation in 1995, he/she would not attend international meets in 1992, 1993 and 1994, which made it already three full years. The remainder of 1991 after the event and the beginning of 1995 before the next event was additional "time out" for the same competitor. The required three years "time out" of FAI rule 8.1.3.6.1 were easily fulfilled, no interpratation of the rule was necessary.

This situation was not the same any longer when the IPC decided to change the cycle of the world championships. The world championship in Spain 2001 was still followed in the "old cycle" by the 2003 event in Gap, France. However, the next world championship was held only one year later in Croatia 2004. From then on and for the near future, the world championships were scheduled back in the same 2-year cycle, only on the even years with the next world championship in Germany 2006.

Pete Allum became apparently trapped when the cycle of the world championships changed. He had competed at many world championships before and was aware of the 3-year "time out" rule. He had the same requirements in mind as they had been in the past when he competed for the United Kingdom in 2003 and decided to compete for Italy in 2006: accept "time out" at the world championship in 2004 to be eligible in 2006.

However, due to the IPC's change of the event cycle, the Croatia 2004 world championship came a whole year earlier than usual. The practically almost four years between world championships of the past became three years for only this specific time period between Gap 2003 and Germany 2006. All of a sudden, uniquely and unexpectedly, the 3-year rule of FAI's 8.1.3.6.1 needed interpretation, especially since the actual event schedule of both events had become critical.

The France 2003 event in Gap allowed the organizers to schedule the competition earlier in the calendar year (September 7 - 14, 2004), while the German event organizers suggested August 5 - 11, 2006 as the event date with their bid for the world championship, due to the weather situations at both locations. These event dates now got into Pete Allum's way to FAI eligibility.

Ironically, the "time out" for Pete Allum would become even much longer if the FAI ruling will stand the appeal. The "1095-day interpretation" of three years would actually turn into a 5-year period for Pete Allum. He competed for the UK team in 2003 and could make his first appearance at a world championship for Italy in 2008. However, he could already attend a world cup in 2007 if Italy had interest in representation at this event of lower priority for national teams.

FAI Secretary General Max Bishop might have detected the critical timing of the 2003 and 2006 events and its impact when he clarified the situation for Italy's IPC Delegate Sara Sacchet, according to Ian W Strachan's (Secretary FAI Air Sport General Commission) message of February 2005:

"However, because the dates of the championship in the third year were earlier in the year, three years had not elapsed if the period is taken to the nearest day. The FAI Secretary General states that it was never the intention to take the three years 'to the day' but to apply it to the relevant championship in the third year, irrespective of its exact dates."

He probably realized that Italy and its national team with Pete Allum were trapped due to the change of the event cycle and was willing to fix the situation with his interpretation of the according FAI rule, which was supposed to be documented with a new language for the same rule at the CASI meeting in May 2005:

"It is suggested that this para now reads: 'A citizen of a country may be issued with a FAI Sporting Licence to represent the NAC of that country. If a person wishes to represent a different NAC in any FAI airsport activity, the new NAC shall not be represented until 1 January of the third year after that in which the previous NAC had been represented.'"

Max Bishop's clarification was taken back and reversed during and after the meeting, and the proposed new language of the rule did not find its way into the FAI's General Section of the Sporting Code. The dates of the events are still the same, the FAI/IPC officials decided to count 1095 days for three years, and Italy's Sinapsi PD is not eligible for participation at the world championship in 2006 at this point.

Italy's appeal will be decided upon by an FAI jury. In the meantime, Sinapsi PD will continue with the athletic part of skydiving competition. The first scores of the Malevsky Memorial Cup 2005 will hopefully be posted tomorrow, and Sinapsi PD with Pete Allum will be found somewhere at the top of the leaderboard. Stay tuned.