posted Jul 4th, 2005 - The event activities at the Malevsky Memorial Cup 2005 have picked up the pace hour by hour. The last training day on Sunday ended with most beautiful weather. The team briefing took place on the competition site at 7 pm, and the competition draw was handed out. The teams went straight to work, while the draw was uploaded to the NSL scoring table. All three Formation Skydiving events, 4-way Open, 4-way Female and 8-way, use the same numbers and letters for all ten rounds.

All registered teams were on site Monday morning with the Austrian team FILA and the French team Mandelieu-Noene arriving last on Sunday night. The schedule for Monday included 4-way rounds in the morning and afternoon. The competition was on a hold at noon when the opening ceremony took place.

The Russian event organizers have put together a great show to welcome the participants year by year. Aerobatics, marching band music, Russian folklore and dancers entertain the participants and visitors until the teams are being introduced and the officials make their way to the microphone for the welcome speeches.

The 4-way competition was resumed after the lunch break, and the schedule still includes 8-way competition at the very end of the day. Two rounds were almost completed before opening ceremony and lunch.

Round one was probably one of the slower rounds of the meet, and three of the four US teams placed themselves on the top of the leaderboard right away, both Airspeed line-ups and DeLand Fire with scores of 19 points each. The Airspeed 4-ways were significantly faster than all other teams on the hill by diving the exit Diamond of Block 10 (Diamond - Bunyip). However, DeLand Fire was half a block ahead of Velocity and Odyssey at the end but could not complete Block 11 (Photon - Photon) within working time.

The two Russian teams Sky Panthers and Extreme.RU followed with 18 points each in this round and tied their scores in the second round, as well. Sky Panthers is the reigning Russian 4-way champion and won the bronze medals at last year's world championship in Croatia. The 2005 line-up includes one new team member.

Extreme.RU was recently assigned by the Russian skydiving federation as the new national team, and this decision did not find much agreement in the Sky Panthers headquarters. In fact, the team insists on its earned slot as the national team and seeks the help from supporters. The NSL News will follow up with more information later.

DeLand Fire and Airspeed Velocity were also locked into a tied position on the very top of the leaderboard after the second round. Airspeed Odyssey fell one point behind. 20 points was the highscore by the two leaders, five teams follwed in this round with 19 points, including Airspeed Odyssey and the fourth US team Fastrax. The team from Indiana had a slow start and looked much better in round two despite some glitches. Three points are between the leaders and Fastrax after two rounds.

Several teams have not been judged with round two at this point, including Italy's Sinapsi PD. The French 4-way team of the Female Class made already clear in round one where the Malevsky Cup gold medals will go to. The Russian Ladybirds lost one point in the judging room and are three points behind after round one. The whole rest of the field in this class will probably be contenders for the bronze medals.

The lunch break and opening ceremony are over, live music is still playing while the jump planes are back in the air. Stay tuned.