posted Nov 21st, 2024 - The NSL News follows up on the British Indoor Nationals 2024 with the competition videos of the event at Weembi Lille in France. Brian Cumming, who is operating and hosting the Radio Skydive UK, helped to make the footage and photos available after the conclusion of the event.

Julia Swallow can now be seen in action as she is winning her second national 4-way championship title, as the NSL News reported on November 17th. She had once again the NFTO 3-way by her side who have been training and competing together since 2018 (Anna Lea, Vana Parker, Sian Stokes).

The 4th NFTO slot has been shared between several British female top competitors (Kate Lindsley, Catherine Anderson, Elizabeth Kennedy, Julia Swallow). Vana Parker and Sian Stokes also had a different lineup for the 2023 outdoor season when Lucy Davies and Danni Hurt trained and competed with NFTO. This year's British national indoor championship was the third consecutive time that the all-female NFTO lineup won the AAA/4-way Open Class gold medals. Elizabeth Kennedy won with the same 3-way and a 25.5 average in 2022, and again in 2023 with 27.1 before Julia Swallow took the point slot earlier this month. In fact, no other 4-way team has won yet since the indoor event was introduced officially to the British competition community.

British Indoor 2024			1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	Total	Avg
Rank	AAA Class Top 6		13,11,L	C,12,20	7,21,18	14,15,10	17,19,M	B,N,4,D	Q,8,H,9	6,A,E,16	2,K,22	F,3,J,5	Total	Avg
1	NFTO	UK	24	22	23	20	28	28	30	25	22	32	254	25.4
2	Chimera	UK	23	20	23	19	28	28	29	23	23	29	245	24.5
3	Norgies	NO	21	18	23	17	25	28	27	24	21	25	229	22.9
4	Apex	UK	19	19	22	18	24	28	25	23	19	28	225	22.5
5	Garudas	BE	21	12	20	13	21	24	25	21	20	22	199	19.9
6	Airdrops	CH	18	17	18	16	19	18	24	19	15	21	185	18.5

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NFTO - Chimera - Apex at the UK Indoor Nationals 2024

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NFTO have also won national outdoor championships, the last one in August 2021 that qualified them as the national team in 4-way Open at the next outdoor world championship. Julia Swallow had the 4th slot by then, as well. NFTO decided to compete in 4-way Women and won the FAI gold medals in Eloy 2022. Chimera represented Great Britain in 4-way Open and placed 5th.

The same two teams had also finished in the same order at the British Outdoor Nationals 2019. NFTO won their first national outdoor championship title in 2018 over Satori XL and Chimera, with Anna Lea, Vana Parker, Sian Stokes, Catherine Anderson in the lineup and Simon Brentford on camera. They placed 2nd in Australia 2018, did not compete in Tanay 2021 and eventually won their FAI gold medals in Eloy 2022.

NFTO now have three British national outdoor and three indoor championship titles in their collection. Chimera won once in 2022 in the absence of NFTO at the national outdoor championship. British Indoor Skydiving is now in the same peculiar situation as British Skydiving was for outdoor competition when NFTO won the national championship in 2021. The delegations usually send the strongest team into the 4-way Open Class competition, while another team represents in 4-way Women. NFTO won in 2021 and then competed in 4-way Women, Chimera in 4-way Open, at the outdoor world championship in Eloy 2022. The situation could be the same at Paraclete XP in April next year.

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Norgies - Garudas at the British Indoor Nationals 2024

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The team in 3rd place at Weembi Lille does not have to weigh similar options at all. The Norgies had former NMP PCH HayaBusa member Roy Janssen in their lineup as a guest team at the British Indoor Nationals. Three original Norgies members (Pål Kolbenstvedt, Carl-Erik Tuv, Torstein Valen) traveled from Norway to France to compete at the British indoor nationals. Only Lise Aune-Nansen missed the reunion.

The complete lineup had attended Norway's indoor championship earlier this year, and the Norgyx combination had also challenged national 4-way Open Class team Agera at the national outdoor championship of 2023. It's now 25 years ago that the Norgies won their first of three consecutive FAI bronze medals at outdoor world championships (1999 – 2001 - 2003), and all members still return to 4-way competition here and there.

The Norgies were the strongest guest team at Weembi Lille and finished ahead of the British national outdoor team in 4-way Open, Apex, who had competed for the British delegation at the 26th FAI World Formation Skydiving Championships in North Carolina last month. Apex had Kate Lindsley in the lineup, a member of the NFTO alumni. Garudas from Belgium did not have to travel far to take advantage of the competition opportunity across the border, while the Airdrops from Switzerland had to cover quite some distance. They had met NFTO in the 4-way Women competition of the FAI Indoor World Championship 2023.