posted Oct 20th, 2009 - The NSL News will still go back to the 2009 USPA National Skydiving Championships quite a few times. However, other important events happened in the meantime and require some attention, as well.

The story on 16 September 2009 reported that Norway's selection of the new national 4-way team would come up soon. Norway's Sports Director and IPC Delegate Trude Sviggum now provided an update of the situation after the selection event.

All candidates met in Oslo, Norway's capitol city, on a weekend in late September and went through interviews and physical tests. The physical tests included running and strenght drills, pushups, situps and other exercises.

Only six of the previously interested and invited eleven candidates showed up. Ellen Burchardt and Kristine Willadsen, members of this year's national 4-way team Nexus, had canceled their attendance at this year's selection.

Trude Sviggum explained that they had decided to look for two other team members of their own choice and form a new Norwegian 4-way lineup for IPC's female category. Ellen Burchardt and Kristine Willadsen were both members of Norway's last female 4-way team Fortitudo, together with Trude Sviggum, and competed at the World Championship of Formation Skydiving 2008 in France.

The team disbanded after the world meet, and Ellen Burchardt and Kristine Willadsen continued with Nexus. Trude Sviggum focused on her professional career in the Norwegian military and her position as the federation's Sports Manager. Norway did not have a female lineup at the FAI World Cup 2009.

Three other candidates for the seletion also decided earlier to recruit their own teams. However, Trude Sviggum reported that the remaining six candidates on the selection weekend were all promising and performed well.

One of the candidates was a skydiver from Denmark, Ulrik Høgsberg, who performed just as well. However, the Norwegian Federation decided to build the new national team with only Norwegian citizens. Mathias Nord, Arcteryx member and Swedish citizen, was the last foreigner who had made it into the Norwegian national 4-way team.

The two other Nexus members, Marianne Nordlund and Yngve Haugom, wanted to continue as members of the new national 4-way team and got their slots after the selection weekend. Their former X3M4 team mates, Kjetil Nordin and Tore Granmo, also attended the selection event and complete the lineup of Norway's new national 4-way team.

Kjetil Nordin and Tore Granmo trained and competed with their own player coach project team Frost this year and finished the 2009 season with a 17.1 average at the ESL Championship 2009. Arctery members Derek Broughton and Ditta Valsdottir competed with Kjetil Nordin and Tore Granmo in September.

Trude Sviggum now confirmed that Marianne Nordlund, Yngve Haugom, Kjetil Nordin and Tore Granmo will compete for Norway in the 4-way Open Class for a 3-year period. They will enjoy the benefits provided by the Norwegian skydiving federation until the World Championship of Formation Skydiving 2012.

Trude Sviggum said that she will follow up with more information of the plans for a new all-female lineup. She added that there were also a lot of candidates for the Freeflying selection. Former Arcteryx member Derek Broughton is going back to his previous event for a little while, as he was officially assigned a slot on the new Norwegian Freeflying team.