posted Aug 3rd, 2024 - The NSL News recently added the coverage of the FAI Outdoor World Championship 1999, which has not been available at SKYLEAGUE.COM or anywhere else until now. The updates from 25 years ago concluded with Solly Williams' last commentary on 29 October 1999.

The next outdoor world championship is just around the corner, and the NSL News is preparing for the live coverage of the event at Crystal Coast Skydiving in North Carolina. Paraclete XP and Skydive Chicago have joined forces with Crystal Coast Skydiving to bring the event, the participating teams and competitors and the audience to a beautiful area at the Atlantic Ocean's coastline.

The new host actually replaces the originally planned outdoor world championship, after Israel could not continue with the preparations and canceled, as the NSL News reported on 13 October 2023.

Many things have changed since Australia 1999, while Solly Williams is still coaching Norway's national team in 4-way Open, Agera, and the NSL News will provide live coverage from North Carolina this time. Agera may not win FAI medals this year as the DeLand Norgies did in 1999, and Solly Williams has also been coaching the German national team, Airbus Illertissen Oceanside, who are a direct opponent for Agera. Both teams are aiming at the highest positions behind the professional medal contenders.

FAI Outdoor World Championship 1999			1		2		3		4		5		6		7		8		9		10		Total	Avg
Rank	4-way Open Top 7		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	-2	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	-4	18		17		18		15		172	17.2
6	Australia	AU	20		21		15		15		14		19		17	-2	17		15	-2	16		169	16.9
7	Daedalus	DE	18		18		13		13		14		18		15		14		16		16		155	15.5

1985 - 2004 (4.8) Scoring (4.8.1) A team will score one point for each judgeable scoring formation performed in the sequence within the allotted working time of each round. Teams may continue scoring by continually repeating the sequence. (4.8.2) Credit will only be given for formations, inters or total separations if the video evidence is judgeable. (4.8.3) One point will be deducted for each infringement occurring within Working Time from the total points awarded in 4.8.1 for that round with the following exceptions: (a) In the case of an omitted formation two points will be deducted for each omission, (b) If an infringement in the scoring formation of a block sequence is carried into the inter (ref. 2.8), this will be considered as one infringement only, and only one point will be deducted, provided that the intent of the inter requirements for the next formation is demonstrated and no other infringement occurs in the inter, (c) The minimum score for any round is zero points.

One of the major differences between world championships in 1999 and 2024 can be found in the penalty rules, as the NSL News mentioned during the coverage of the 1999 event. The closer look at the 4-way Open Class leaderboard of 1999 is showing the leaderboard with the seven teams who made it to the last round.

There were cuts after Round 8 and Round 9, which eliminated a certain number of teams from further participation. Seven teams made it to Round 10 in 1999. The cuts were removed from the competition format after the FAI Outdoor World Championships in Prostejov 2014. All registered teams completed all ten rounds for the first time in Skydive Chicago in 2016, and they will that again in October this year.

The elimination of the cuts was not related to the penalty rules, which were facing their own very significant change a decade earlier after the the world championship in Rijeka 2004. That's the event where Solly Williams won his 4-way world championship title with DeLand Majik, together with his South African team mate and coaching fellow Gary Smith. The NSL News audience may have noticed that the leaderboards until 2004 looked a lot cleaner compared to contemporary ones. There was a simple reason for that. Any infringement of the rules did not only cause the respective formation not counting for the total number of points within working time. There was also an additional point deduction.

FAI Outdoor World Championship 2022			1		2		3		4		5		6		7		8		9		10		Total	Avg
Rank	4-way Open		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
5	Chimera	UK	16		21	-2	19		19	-1	18	-5	18	-1	16		14	-1	23	-1	24		188	18.8
6	Papea Masculino	ES	17	-1	20	-1	18	-1	21		21	-2	18		15		15		21	-1	20	-3	186	18.6
7	Echochamber Oceanside	SE	14	-1	21		19		19		20	-1	17		16		15		24	-1	20	-1	185	18.5

2005 - 2024 (4.7) Scoring (4.7.1) A team will score one point for each scoring formation performed in the sequence within the allotted working time of each round. Teams may continue scoring by continually repeating the sequence. (4.7.2) For each omission three points will be deducted. If both the inter and the second formation in a block sequence are omitted, this will be considered as only one omission. (4.7.3) If an infringement in the scoring formation of a block sequence is carried into the inter, this will be considered as one infringement only, provided that the intent of the inter requirements for the next formation is clearly presented and no other infringement occurs in the inter. (4.7.4) The minimum score for any round is zero points.

The 1999 winners from France, Solly Williams' DeLand Norgies and Sebastian XL performed so clean that they did not incur any infringements, which could cause the painful additional point deduction. In fact, only three of the Top 7 teams were penalized, which included Arizona Airspeed with a 4-point loss after two infringements in Round 4.

Solly Williams won his 4-way gold medal with DeLand Majik at the last world championship that punished teams for an infringement with the additional point deduction. Teams had to perform in a very clean way to convince the judges of their desire to follow the rules. He first won bronze medals for South Africa in 1997 with DeLand Equanimity and the tougher penalty rules, then gold with DeLand Majik in 2004.

FAI/ISC decided after Rijeka 2004 to drop the additional point deduction and reduced the punishment for rules violations and infringements. The impact of the rule change was significant, as contemporary leaderboards are showing. Teams came quickly to the conclusion that it is more successful to ignore any potential infringements and continue without fixing a questionable situation that would have been punished heavily before. The leaderboard of the Top 7 teams at the FAI Outdoor World Championships 2022 is showing the difference of penalty markings between the world championships in 1999 and 2022. Solly Williams had to perform as clean as possible with his bronze medal team in 1997 and coach the DeLand Norgies to their clean bronze medals in 1999, 2001 and 2003. Then he applied the same clean strategy with 4-way world champions DeLand Majik in 2004 before he had to change direction and encourage teams to keep going and ignore potential penalty situations, despite a questionable scoring situation or not.