posted Mar 14th, 2025 - The Formation Skydiving competition career of Sven Ibens has been well documented in the history of NSL News, and it includes his NSL Profile, even though he has never been a world champion as a founding member of NMP PCH HayaBusa. He stepped back when he thought that HayaBusa had the potential to win world championships with a full-time lineup.

It took NMP PCH HayaBusa eight years after Sven Ibens’ retirement from high-intensity training and competition until the 2012 lineup won the first FAI outdoor gold medals for Belgium in Prostejov 2014. They did not let go of the legendary William H. Ottley Sword for the 4-way world champions, also known as the Excalibur, until Arizona Airspeed won in Eloy 2022.

Sven Ibens visited Florida this week in his new position as Vigil's CEO. The NSL News had reported on 29 September 2024 that he had concluded his competitive 4-way career. The update included NSL Live Talk on the Zoom internet platform where he provided more background information and the reasons for the change in his professional career. He was on work duty when he visited Florida this week, where the PIA Symposium took place in Daytona Beach. It was the next opportunity for real NSL Live Talk in the Ocean Convention Center, which was hosting the PIA Symposium.

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NSL Live Talk with Sven Ibens, Recorded on 14 March 2025 at the PIA Symposium

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It was not the first visit in Florida for Sven Ibens. The different HayaBusa lineups always chose Florida for their outdoor winter training camps. It was Skydive DeLand in the earlier HayaBusa years, while the current lineups have been running most of their training camps at Skydive City.

Spa HayaBusa were in their third year with the first lineup (Sven Ibens, Roy Janssen, Andy and David Grauwels, Bruno van den Eede on camera) when they trained in DeLand and competed at the Shamrock Showdown 2005. The same lineup attended their second outdoor world championship in Gera 2006 after their first world meet experiences in Rijeka 2004.

Spa Hayabusa finished in 6th place at both world championships despite increasing their scoring average from 17.8 in Croatia to 20.4 in Germany. That's when Sven Ibens decided to step back, while Roy Janssen, Andy and David Grauwels joined the Belgian military forces to go full time and become 4-way world champions. Sven Ibens was far from being done with Formation Skydiving competition, even though he did not continue with NMP PCH HayaBusa. He was just as passionate for the sport as he was before, and it did not take very long until he recruited his next team to continue on the recreational competition level.

USPA Nationals 2017			1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	Total	Avg
Rank	8-way Open		G,22,1	9,6,2	D,7,17	8,J,C,K	Q,B,14,20	19,15,4	A,10,13	12,M,N,P	H,O,3,16	5,21,11	Total	Avg
1	Golden Knights	US	22	17	16	19	21	22	19	21	28	17	202	20.2
G	Fly-In Machine 44	BE	23	16	17	16	15	21	16	20	26	15	185	18.5
G	Qatar Falcons	QA	16	12	15	12	15	16	13	17	20	13	149	14.9
2	Arizona Airspeed	US	17	14	11	15	15	17	14	13	18	13	147	14.7
G	Amphibious Attack Tigers	US	18	12	13	10	13	18	14	16	15	11	140	14.0
6	SDC Rhythm XP8	US	12	11	12	13	11	15	12	15	14	12	127	12.7
7	Paraclete XP8	US	13	11	10	11	12	14	12	11	14	10	118	11.8
8	Spaceland Gummies 8	US	11	11	8	7	10	12	9	10	10	9	97	9.7
G	Perris Spider Pigs	US	5	7	4	5	6	5	7	5	4	7	55	5.5

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Fly-In Machine 44 at the USPA Nationals 2017

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The Dutch/Belgian Thunder ISR combination attended their first competition in 2009 and continued for seven years until their last appearance at the ISR Grand Prix 2016. In the same seven years, Thunder became one of the strongest unofficial amateur teams in the sport and was showing this at the 33 events in the team's competitive history.

They brought the unofficial amateur scoring to the highest level at all events where the lineup with team members from two different nations were accepted. The duel with the Russian team Sportloto was one of the regular challenges for Thunder.

Sven Ibens still moved on and formed a new Belgian team, ISR FireFlash, in 2017 (Wesley Claessens, Sven Ibens, Glenn Straeluyc, Maya Van Campenhout, Grim Swinnen still on camera), who soon became one of the strongest amateur teams in the world, as well. ISR FireFlash then joined forces with the new NMP PCH HayaBusa lineup for the Fly-In Machine 44 8-way team, who took the 2nd place as a guest team behind the Golden Knights at the USPA Nationals 2017. Sven Ibens said during the NSL Live Talk that he is now encouraging his son Siem (18) to pursue similar goals that he had, and he works on putting together a new 8-way team, including his wife Annelies Hasewinkel-Ibens and his son Siem Ibens, who collected his first 4-way experiences with Family Flash and Falco.

World Challenge 2015			1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	Total	Avg
Rank	AAA Class		15,K,E,F	11,22,A	16,H,M,19	3,10,D	17,18,P	4,12,O	5,N,L,G	14,B,C,20	2,1,21	J,Q,6,13	Total	Avg
5	Thunder ISR	BE	35	21	29	23	27	21	28	24	22	27	257	25.7
6	SportLoto	RU	36	23	30	21	24	21	32	22	23	22	254	25.4
World Challenge 2014			1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	Total	Avg
Rank	AAA Class		17,18,19	5,16,6	4,N,13	P,F,12,M	J,D,10,K	G,3,O,C	H,22,14	20,2,8	1,21,11	15,7,L	Total	Avg
5	SportLoto	RU	24	26	20	30	21	30	24	21	20	27	243	24.3
6	Thunder ISR	BE	20	24	21	30	27	27	21	21	21	29	241	24.1
World Challenge 2013			1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	Total	Avg
Rank	AAA Class		O,E,J,K,3	M,Q,A,14	4,6,16	8,18,N	H,19,12	2,7,13	11,C,P,9	15,D,10	L,F,17,G	20,1,22	Total	Avg
6	SportLoto	RU	35	28	19	23	24	21	30	23	34	20	257	25.7
7	Thunder ISR	BE	33	32	21	23	23	22	29	21	31	19	254	25.4
FAI Outdoor World Cup 2012			1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	Total	Avg
Rank	4-way Open		1,19,2	14,18,15	N,16,20	E,6,J,A	C,K,9,13	F,8,11	Q,22,L,21	B,17,H,P	12,D,O,4	G,10,7	Total	Avg
2	ISR Thunder	BE	20	17	20	24	27	20	20	31	20	19	218	21.8
3	SportLoto	RU	16	17	21	29	20	19	20	31	19	20	212	21.2

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ISR Thunder (BE) - Sportloto (RU) at the FAI Outdoor World Cup 2012

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