posted Jan 29th, 2025 - The NSL News has touched the topic of the unofficial amateur world champions on a regular basis in the past years, including the most recent NSL Live Talk with Ben Liston. By any means, this is exclusively a journalistic topic and is not covered by any rules and regulations in formation skydiving competition. However, the recreational teams and competitors still represent arguably 95% of the participants in the sport, which is a number that the experts in the sport estimate.

Formation skydiving competition is still a very young sport, and the currently applied format was introduced only 40 years ago exactly (1985). At this time, there were neither officially defined professional teams nor an unofficial amateur status of participating teams. Only military teams were professionals by jumping from planes as a part of their services, while all other 4-way and 8-way teams tried to make the best out of their passion for the unusual sport. Some countries supported their national teams with state-funded support.

The situation has not changed much for the 95% of participating teams, who only invest into their passion in different dimensions. Then there are at least a few 4-way teams and competitors who manage to become full-time 4-way or 8-way competitors and are covered by external and additional internal funding. The other 95% of all 4-way teams compete unofficially to become the best team in the state, the country and the world, the recreational amateur teams.

Medal Winners at FAI World Championships of Formation Skydiving Competition between 1985 and 2024

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The NSL News eventually tried to track down the development of the sport related to this topic, after covering it for several years. The first chart is not new and has usually been a part of the previews and aftermath of world championships. It simply shows all medal winners in 4-way Open since 1985.

This overview of the medal winning countries at outdoor world championships between 1985 and 2024 is still also showing how the full-time teams and competitors have separated themselves athletically from the amateur teams. Ten different countries (Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Italy, Norway, Russia, South Africa, USA) shared the three sets of FAI medals at outdoor world championship between 1985 and 2014. The development of professional full-time teams in the last decade reduced the number of medal winning countries to four (Belgium, Qatar, France, USA) between 2016 and 2024.

The separation was even more significant between 1991 and 2010 when the United States and France won all 4-way gold and silver medals, United States and Belgium between 2012 and 2022. Only Canada (1985) and Russia (1989) interfered once with this power position on the very top of the leaderboards. United States and France took back the two top spots last year.

FAI World Meet 1995			1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	Total	Avg
Rank	4-way Open Top 8 Finalists		TBD	TBD	TBD	TBD	TBD	TBD	TBD	TBD	TBD	TBD	Total	Avg
1	Arizona Airspeed	US	16	26	26	20	18	23	21	18	21	18	207	20.7
2	France	FR	16	25	26	18	17	21	23	17	21	21	205	20.5
3	Touche	DK	15	21	22	18	16	19	18	15	18	17	179	17.9
4	DeLand Norgies	NO	13	23	21	14	14	20	22	15	16	13	171	17.1
5	DeLand Equanimity	ZA	13	19	21	16	16	17	19	15	18	14	168	16.8
6	Russia	RU	14	17	22	13	14	19	20	13	17	16	165	16.5
7	Belgium	BE	13	19	21	12	16	18	14	13	15	15	156	15.6
8	Switzerland	CH	13	21	14	14	14	18	18	11	15	9	147	14.7

Top 5 Rankings at FAI World Championships of Formation Skydiving Competition between 1985 and 2024

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The growing separation between the pros and the amateurs in 4-way formation skydiving competition becomes more obvious with a closer look at the Top 5 positions in the same time period, which includes the best amateur teams in the world.

National teams from 19 different countries made the Top 5 at outdoor world championships in the same time period between 1985 and 2014. This number then came down to eight teams between 2016 and 2024. It could be even more difficult for amateur teams to make it to the Top 5 if Russia participated in the sport as between 1985 and 2016. Russian 4-way teams placed within the Top 5 at 12 world championships between 1987 and 2016. Sweden (Echochamber), Spain (Papea) and Great Britain (Chimera) were able to place 5th between 2018 and 2024 in the absence of 4-way Open Class teams from Russia.

The best 4-way teams in the world broke through the 20-average benchmark first time in 1995 (US, FR). The first "amateur teams" on this level were the DeLand Norgies and Sebastian XL in 2003, even though the team members had also dedicated their lives to 4-way training and competition for several years. The scoring and performance level of the teams behind the medal positions increased at a few world championship, which was partially supported by the competition draw and weather situations. It has finally settled again around the 20-average benchmark, despite more advanced training strategies and additional indoor training.

FAI World Meet 2003			1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	Total	Avg
Rank	4-way Open Top 8 Semifinalists		1,11,12	M,J,E,10	K,16,6	13,14,5	D,22,4	9,C,Q,N	F,19,21	2,20,L	18,B,3	8,P,7	Total	Avg
1	Maubeuge	FR	16	26	23	19	21	37	24	21	19	23	229	22.9
2	Golden Knights	US	17	24	22	19	18	35	22	18	19	20	214	21.4
3	DeLand Norgies	NO	13	24	21	19	18	36	19	16	19	21	206	20.6
4	Sebastian XL	UK	14	22	21	19	17	34	21	18	19	20	205	20.5
5	Sinapsi PD	IT	13	24	22	17	17	32	22	18	18	-	183	20.3
6	Endeavour	CH	13	21	19	15	17	29	21	17	16	-	168	18.7
7	NMPV	BE	15	19	19	16	15	29	19	16	16	-	164	18.2
8	EADS	DE	14	19	17	15	15	26	17	16	16	-	155	17.2

Meet Averages of Teams in 5th Place at FAI World Championships of Formation Skydiving Competition between 1985 and 2024

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