posted Oct 16th, 2009 - Clement Martin St. Leon, 8-way world champion of 2006 and 2006 and now team captain of the French 8-way machine, e-mailed and said that his team is following the action at the 2009 USPA National Skydiving Championships very carefully. The defending champions will face the new US national 8-way team next year in Russia.

The French competitors are impressed with the 8-way performance at Spaceland, as Clement Martin St. Leon admitted: "The performances of the three top teams in 8-way are just awesome and very impressive regarding the number of training jumps for Airspeed, the level of experience for the Golden Knights, and the number of alternates for Paraclete!!!"

France's team captain has obviously followed the event coverage very carefully...

The French 8-way team will visit Eloy in January 2010 for a training camp and is hoping to arrange an invitational competition with the US 8-way team. France finished the 8-way competition at the FAI World Cup 2009 with a 17.3 average after ten rounds. Arizona Airspeed is leading the Open Class field at the USPA Nationals with a 19.1 average after seven rounds.

Round 7 was just completed, and Paraclete XP fell far behind after losing four points to both Airspeed and Golden Knights. The US Army team seems to be in a very solid position behind Airspeed now. The Knights don't have to look back any longer and can fully focus on challenging Airspeed for the gold medals. Airspeed is still leading by four points.

Another video made it up into the internet space successfully last night. The audience can watch the 4-way teams after Round 10 in the landing area, where Jack Jefferies once again helps with funny and serious commentary. The award ceremony follows in the same video.