posted Dec 19th, 2023 - Recent NSL News updates covered the long team history of NMP PCH HayaBusa, which began in 2003 and peaked with four consecutive world championship titles, the last one in 2021. The competitive relationship with Julien Degen and his French team mates in the same long time period was a related topic.

Julien Degen and David Grauwels are still very active, as the update on December 16th pointed out, after they met directly again at the Belgian open indoor championship. Julien Degen is not competing for France and the country's national teams any longer, and David Grauwels has actually retired to HayaBusa's camera slot.

There is still another Formation Skydiving competitor, who shared the time and leaderboards at the same events that Julien Degen and David Grauwels have attended for their countries. Kirk Verner is still in the U.S. delegation for world championships as a member of the active GKXP8 lineup, and he will outlast David Grauwels who switches back to the camera slot after the military CISM world championship.

In fact, Kirk Verner already had FAI world championship 4-way and 8-way gold medals in his collection before Julien Degen and David Grauwels had even started with their very successful international competition careers.

Arizona Airspeed lineups between 1994 and 2023

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Kirk Verner is one of the original Arizona Airspeed members (Jack Jefferies, Dan BC, Mark Kirkby, John Lemming on camera). He had won two gold medals in 4-way (1995, 1997) and two in 8-way (1999, 2004) when Julien Degen and David Grauwels both attended their first world championship for France and Belgium in Rijeka 2004.

Kirk Verner added more FAI world championship gold medals to his collection after he moved to North Carolina and worked full-time for Paraclete XP. He helped Tim and John D'Annunzio to build a new 8-way team, and XP8 eventually qualified as the U.S. national team and won 8-way gold medals with Airspeed XP8 at the FAI Tanay Mondial.

Paraclete XP8 continued with a new lineup, still including Kirk Verner, and won the next FAI gold medals in Eloy 2022. It was Kirk Verner's 6th world championship title, and he will add the 7th next year, once again in 8-way, this time with GKXP8. This will turn him into the most successful Formation Skydiving competitor in the history of the sport.

His original Airspeed team mate Mark Kirkby owns this honor so far with six FAI outdoor world championship gold medals. This month of December 2023 is a special one for the original Airspeed members, as they formed the team in December 1993, thirty years ago.

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Arizona Airspeed world champions of 1995 congratulate Airspeed world champions of 2022

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Kirk Verner, Jack Jefferies, Dan BC and Mark Kirkby met in December 1993 to commit to the goal of bringing the William H. Ottley Sword for the 4-way world champions, also known as the 4-way Excalibur, back to the United States, after losing to France four consecutive times between 1987 and 1993.

They negotiated the full support by Skydive Arizona's Larry Hill and moved to Eloy. The Arizona Airspeed project was born and has lasted for 30 years. Niklas Hemlin, Mikhail Markine, Christopher Kuhlmann, Joey Marshall, with Brendan Haddon on camera, are the latest and current Airspeed generation.

All four original Airspeed members were present for Round 10 when the current lineup won the next set of gold medals in Eloy 2022, including Kirk Verner who won 8-way gold at the same event.

The celebration of the 30-year anniversary will include the next Airspeed Raffle as a part of this year's Christmas Boogie at Skydive Arizona, as Joey Marshall recently announced for Airspeed. However, Kirk Verner has 8-way training and coaching jobs scheduled at Paraclete XP and will not be in Arizona. He needs to be ready for his own next gold-medal approach in North Carolina next year.

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