posted Sep 29th, 2024 - The NSL News mentioned in the preview of the ESL Championship 2024 on September 21st that Belgian 4-way legend Sven Ibens would attend his last competition with a well trained team at the Fallschirmsportzentrum Saar in Germany.

His amazing 4-way career began even before he became one of the original NMP PCH HayaBusa members, and his journey of over three decades was documented as well as possible in his NSL Profile that was published in 2016. Links to related updates were added later, as he continued with his competitive 4-way career for another eight years.

His name is mostly linked to the 4-way career of NMP PCH HayaBusa, even though he never won a world championship title with the Belgian national team in 4-way Open. However, even the current members still consider him the team's godfather with the heart and soul of a real team captain and mentor, and his positive reputation goes far beyond the HayaBusa environment and Belgium. Sven Ibens could not continue with HayaBusa after the outdoor world championships in Rijeka 2004 and Gera 2006 when his three original team mates Roy Janssen, David and Andy Grauwels committed themselves to military services and becoming 4-way world champions.

ESL Championship 2024			1		2		3		4		5		6		7		8		9		10		Total	Avg
Rank	AAA Class		B,4,1		Q,O,E,F,22		10,14,9		5,6,L		C,3,J,15		12,17,13		K,A,19,21		8,7,H		G,20,N,D		P,11,18		Total	Avg
1	Qatar Lions	QA	20		27	-2	16	-1	21		18	-1	14	-1	20	-1	21		23		18		198	19.8
2	Airbus Illertissen Oceanside	DE	18	-1	26		17		20		18		15		20	-1	21		20		16	-1	191	19.1
3	ISR Fireflash	BE	19		24	-1	16		21		17	-1	16	-1	17	-1	20		21		17		188	18.8
4	Skywalkers Junior	CZ	16	-1	22	-3	14	-1	18	-1	18	-1	15		17	-1	17	-2	16	-4	17		170	17.0
5	AYRO	BE	17		22	-1	11		18		16		12		16		18		16	-1	14	-1	160	16.0
6	Qatar Cheetahs	QA	14	-1	23		13		14		12	-3	13		15	-2	16		17	-1	13		150	15.0
7	Dark NeVa	DE	12		18		13		13		15		12		15		14		15		12		139	13.9
8	Falco	BE	14		16	-3	11	-1	13		14		12		15		16		14		12	-2	137	13.7
9	Mriya	UA	10		15	-1	9		12		10	-1	10		11		12	-1	10	-1	8	-1	107	10.7
10	Schnelle Schnecken	UK	7	-2	13	-1	9		9		9		6	-1	9		12		8		9		91	9.1
11	Shinobi	NL	9		13		7		8		7	-1	6	-1	9		11		8	-1	8	-1	86	8.6

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NSL Live Talk with Sven Ibens

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It was coincidence that Sven Ibens' successor in HayaBusa's inside center slot, Luc Verstrepen, was just on NSL Live Talk together with Gary Smith a few days before the online interview with Sven Ibens himself. They were all present at the ESL Championship 2024, and the NSL News followed up with them for different reasons.

Gary Smith and Luc Verstrepen were coaching Qatar's Lions and Cheetahs in Saarlouis, while Sven Ibens competed with ISR FireFlash for the last time. The topics of the two separate NSL Live Talk sessions were naturally different, even though they are still very closely connected.

Goal with Sven Ibens this time was covering special events and highlights of his complete 4-way career in a nutshell, which was naturally impossible within 40 minutes of available time. However, some of the unlimited amount of unknown stories came to the surface during the conversation. Sven Ibens has always been primarily attracted to high-level 4-way competition, and the three main team projects between 2003 and 2024 were NMP PCH HayaBusa, Thunder ISR and ISR Fireflash.

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Sven Ibens with Spa HayaBusa in 2005 and ISR FireFlash at the ESL Championship 2024

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Sven Ibens could only handle a short break after leaving NMP PCH HayaBusa at the end of the 2006 season. He was already back in action two years later with a new lineup that turned out to become Thunder ISR (Wesley Claessens, Paul Hofstee, Jacco van Eerden, Grim Swinnen on camera) who progressed to world class level as an amateur team in the eight years together (2009 - 2016).

Wesley Claessens and Grim Swinnen even continued with Sven Ibens for another six years (2017 - 2022) when they formed ISR FireFlash with a complete Belgian lineup. That makes it a total of 14 years of the 3-way together and indicates Sven Ibens' aim for continuity and team commitment. Grim Swinnen was still filming Sven Ibens this month at his last competition with the current FireFlash lineup.

Sven Ibens is surely not done with 4-way competition. He plans to still show up again at meets to enjoy the environment and the competitive community. He will just reduce training to a minimum and spend more free time with his family.

In the meantime, his son Siem, 17 years of age, has joined Belgian team Falco, who also competed at the ESL Championship. The NSL News had mentioned him when he competed with the Ibens Family Flash last year. He replaces Paul Hofstee for Falco who joined Out Of The Blue this year and spent his own eight years with Sven Ibens and ISR Thunder.