posted Jun 5th, 2024 - The recent excursion of the NSL News into earlier decades of Formation Skydiving competition included the history of Paul Hofstee's 4-way and 8-way odyssey in different European teams and his return to the Dutch roots as the new outside center for Out Of The Blue (OOTB).

The NSL News found his name in even earlier and unpublished archives before he launched the Punky Fish player-coaching project and then joined the Dutch national 4-way team, Dynamic Fource. Paul Hofstee's previous team, Dutch Fource, competed at each world championship and world cup between 1998 and 2001 before he and Bert Hajee continued with Punky Fish.

Together they tried to find a different way how to lift the Dutch performance level after continuously finishing in the lower part of the international leaderboards. Result of the efforts was Punky Fish, followed by the first two Top 10 finishes by Dynamic Fource at the world championships in 2008 and 2010.

The closer look into the earlier and unpublished NSL News archives was also showing that the current coverage of Formation Skydiving competition was very similar to the format and content that has been available since 2003 and has continued into the presence. The scores and information were published in different ways on the internet, while leaderboards and story lines were available by then as they are now.

FAI World Meet 1999			1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	Total	Avg
Rank	4-way Open		9,24,A	O,M,2,Q	14,P,11	19,3,15	N,8,12	C,1,E,20	K,23,17	B,16,21	L,22,J,7	G,5,6	Total	Avg
1	Maubeuge	FR	23	23	18	19	18	24	21	21	21	20	208	20.8
2	Arizona Airspeed	US	23	24	19	16	17	26	19	19	20	19	202	20.2
3	DeLand Norgies	NO	21	23	16	17	16	23	20	19	20	16	191	19.1
4	Sebastian XL	UK	21	23	16	17	17	23	18	17	20	18	190	19.0
5	Russia	RU	22	20	13	16	16	17	18	17	18	15	172	17.2
6	Australia	AU	20	21	15	15	14	19	17	17	15	16	169	16.9
7	Daedalus	DE	18	18	13	13	14	18	15	14	16	16	155	15.5
8	Italy	IT	19	16	11	14	9	20	16	13	14	-	132	14.7
9	Japan	JP	15	18	11	12	12	15	15	14	14	-	126	14.0
10	Spain	ES	12	18	12	13	13	15	11	15	16	-	125	13.9
11	Hungary	HU	15	18	13	11	12	15	14	12	11	-	121	13.4
12	Belgium	BE	15	17	10	13	11	14	12	12	15	-	119	13.2
13	Denmark	DK	14	16	10	11	12	17	12	13	13	-	118	13.1
14	J5	ZA	14	15	11	11	12	14	11	13	-	-	101	12.6
15	Switzerland	CH	9	14	11	10	11	13	13	14	-	-	95	11.9
16	Netherlands	NL	12	15	6	11	11	10	10	14	-	-	89	11.1
17	Monkey Circus	AT	13	7	9	11	10	15	9	12	-	-	86	10.8
18	New Zealand	NZ	12	11	6	7	9	11	10	9	-	-	75	9.4
19	Canada	CA	11	12	7	9	7	11	7	5	-	-	69	8.6
20	Israel	IL	10	13	8	4	9	11	6	7	-	-	68	8.5
21	Portugal	PT	10	10	6	5	8	8	8	8	-	-	63	7.9
22	Slovakia	SK	7	9	7	5	8	8	9	9	-	-	62	7.8
23	Thailand	TH	9	5	0	5	6	3	8	4	-	-	40	5.0
24	Zimbabwe	ZW	5	5	4	1	2	5	3	4	-	-	29	3.6
25	Cyprus	CY	5	5	2	2	2	6	3	0	-	-	25	3.1

The NSL News took on the situation on the top level of the 4-way world after the FAI World Championship 1999 in August 2000, a few months before the FAI World Cup would offer the next results of the top teams. The update included a power ranking based on available scores in August 2000.

Did you know that the 4-way world rankings in 2000 indicated the 2001 results?

Eight nations had their national championships of 2000 to date and posted their results. The NSL News collected the scores from various sites and compared them with each other. The result is the current world ranking.

Rank	Nation	Team Name	2000	1999
1	France	Perris Maubeuge	21.3	20.8
2	U.S.A.	Airspeed Vertical	20.5	20.2
3	Russia	Russia	19.3	17.2
4	Norway	DeLand Norgies	18.4	19.1
5	Great Britain	Sebastian XL	17.8	19.0
6	Italy	Sinapsi Skydive Udine	17.2	14.7
7	Germany	EADS	14.8	15.5
8	Netherlands	Dutch Force	12.9	11.1
9	Canada	Skydive America EH	10.6	8.6

The point averages are accurate, however, each competition had a different draw, and some of the meets did not go over ten rounds. This gives the ranking an undefined inconsistency. Disregarding the difficulties in comparing these scores, they still seem to be not far away from reality.

A bigger question mark is behind the Russian scores. The NSL headquarters is unfortunately not well educated in the Russian language. It was just speculative whether the posted scores are the current 4-way results or not.

The first five places are held by exactly the same nations as at last year's world championship in Australia. If the Russian scores are accurate, the team moved up from 5th place to the bronze medal position. The scores reported from the Italian Nationals are also very impressive. It was a 10-round competition, and Italy apparently improved their point average from 14.7 to 17.2 within nine months. There seems to be a new challenger for a medal position at the world meet in 2001. Sebastian XL has a new team member and is almost back to the performance level at last year's world championship. The DeLand Norgies have potential for much more than shown so far this year. Hopefully, many of these teams will also compete at this year's world cup in November at Skydive Arizona.

FAI World Cup 2000			1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	Total	Avg
Rank	4-way Open		18,B,6	12,11,15	H,L,9,5	14,19,13	8,17,E	3,G,22	23,J,K,2	C,4,D,Q	F,16,N,M	1,10,O	Total	Avg
1	Airspeed Vertical	US	22	17	27	18	20	19	20	26	22	21	212	21.2
2	Maubeuge	FR	21	17	26	17	21	17	22	22	24	21	208	20.8
3	DeLand PD Blue	US	21	16	25	17	18	18	22	22	24	19	202	20.2
3	DeLand Norgies	NO	21	16	27	18	18	20	14	23	25	20	202	20.2
5	DeLand FX	US	16	15	29	17	20	18	17	20	25	20	197	19.7
6	Airspeed Zulu	US	20	15	22	16	17	16	19	16	22	17	180	18.0
7	Sinapsi PD	IT	16	13	19	13	14	14	16	16	18	16	155	15.5
7	Russia 4-way	RU	11	13	23	11	15	12	17	20	18	15	155	15.5
9	EADS	DE	13	13	21	13	16	14	15	16	17	13	151	15.1
10	Great Britain	UK	14	11	15	12	11	10	15	18	15	13	134	13.4
10	Denmark	DK	11	11	18	12	16	12	13	15	13	13	134	13.4
12	Endeavour	CH	14	9	16	12	13	11	13	14	10	-	112	12.4
13	Dutch Fource	NL	11	10	16	12	12	9	13	13	15	-	111	12.3
14	Norgies Rookies	NO	9	11	13	11	11	11	13	14	-	-	93	11.6
15	Aluminum	RU	12	8	11	11	9	13	11	14	-	-	89	11.1
16	Mosquitos	NL	13	10	10	9	11	11	11	11	-	-	86	10.8
17	Portugal	PT	7	7	11	5	6	9	9	9	9	-	72	8.0
18	Block Busters	NL	11	8	4	7	3	-	-	-	-	-	33	6.6

Some NSL News articles of the time around the FAI World Cup 2000 were copied earlier from the archives to current coverage, and the leaderboard is showing that the participation at the world cup was significantly lower compared to the world championship in 1999.

However, the race for the next FAI world championship medals in 2001 was already in full swing. France had a different lineup in 2000 with two new members (Julien LeSantos, Erwan Pouliquen), while the new Airspeed Vertical lineup replaced the original team. Airspeed had placed 2nd behind France in Australia 1999 and won 8-way gold medals.

Airspeed Vertical could defend the top position of 2000 a year later in Spain 2001 by two points (214 - 212) and Russia won the 8-way competition. The DeLand Norgies defended their bronze medal position successfully in 2001, once again over Sebastian XL.

Russia did not compete in Spain with the same promising lineup of the world rankings in 2000 and finished in 8th place at the next world championship, after the 5th place in 1999. Sinapsi PD was the promising Italian 4-way team that the NSL News mentioned in August 2000. Two of the original team members (Luca Marchioro, Livio Piccolo) would eventually win FAI bronze medals at the world championship in Gera 2006, together with previous Sebastian XL member Pete Allum in the Italian lineup.

FAI World Championship 2001			1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	Total	Avg
Rank	4-way Open		8,19,24	A,L,22,H	E,10,D,11	21,6,4	B,18,C,14	G,5,20	2,1,16	M,K,12,9	15,23,P	O,17,Q,N	Total	Avg
1	Airspeed Vertical	US	19	25	21	19	20	20	20	23	17	30	214	21.4
2	Maubeuge	FR	19	20	20	18	21	21	19	23	20	31	212	21.2
3	DeLand Norgies	NO	19	22	20	18	19	19	19	21	18	31	206	20.6
4	Sebastian XL	UK	17	22	20	17	18	19	19	21	18	28	199	19.9
5	Endeavour	CH	14	17	15	14	14	16	15	17	13	26	161	16.1
6	Sinapsi PD	IT	12	13	17	15	15	15	14	19	15	24	159	15.9
7	Germany	DE	13	13	15	15	16	15	14	18	13	-	132	14.7
8	Russia	RU	13	17	14	13	14	14	16	15	13	-	129	14.3
8	Belgium	BE	14	14	14	13	14	14	15	17	14	-	129	14.3
10	Japan	JP	14	14	15	14	16	13	11	17	12	-	126	14.0
11	Spain	ES	14	11	14	14	15	12	15	18	-	-	113	14.1
12	Netherlands	NL	13	16	14	13	14	12	13	14	-	-	109	13.6
13	Australia	AU	13	11	15	14	10	14	15	11	-	-	103	12.9
14	Voodoo	ZA	11	14	13	12	13	13	11	15	-	-	102	12.8
15	Canada	CA	10	11	11	12	11	12	13	13	-	-	93	11.6
16	Croatia	HR	9	11	11	11	12	10	9	13	-	-	86	10.8
17	Brazil	BR	10	11	9	9	10	10	11	12	-	-	82	10.3
18	Ireland	IE	10	11	10	9	8	9	11	10	-	-	78	9.8
19	Denmark	DK	8	10	11	8	9	9	10	11	-	-	76	9.5
20	Austria	AT	5	9	7	10	11	10	8	12	-	-	72	9.0
21	Portugal	PT	7	3	8	10	9	9	9	11	-	-	66	8.3
22	Czech Republic	CZ	7	9	4	8	11	5	10	11	-	-	65	8.1
23	Lithuania	LT	8	7	6	8	8	9	7	8	-	-	61	7.6
24	Argentina	AR	5	8	6	9	7	7	5	8	-	-	55	6.9
25	Israel	IL	6	8	4	9	5	5	8	9	-	-	54	6.8
26	Slovakia	SK	5	8	7	8	7	7	5	0	-	-	47	5.9
26	Finland	FI	4	8	7	9	5	7	5	2	-	-	47	5.9
28	Indonesia	ID	6	6	6	5	5	6	5	6	-	-	45	5.6
29	Turkey	TR	5	5	4	7	7	5	5	6	-	-	44	5.5
30	Slovenia	SI	8	10	9	9	3	0	0	4	-	-	43	5.4
31	Poland	PL	5	6	5	3	2	7	1	9	-	-	38	4.8
32	Colombia	CO	3	3	5	1	3	4	6	5	-	-	30	3.8
33	Korea	KR	2	4	2	6	3	0	0	6	-	-	23	2.9
34	Zimbabwe	ZW	2	3	1	4	1	3	3	4	-	-	21	2.6