posted Oct 26th, 2009 - It's time to move on with the 8-way Open story of the 2009 USPA National Skydiving Championships. The previous review of this exciting race and the dramatic ending during the award ceremony was posted on 22 October 2009. The story included a clip of the Golden Knights and the US Army team's first five competition jumps at Spaceland.

This time, NSL-TV presents all three top teams with their rounds six and seven. Arizona Airspeed was already in first place at that point time (100), with a 4-point lead over the Golden Knights (96). The US Army team was only one single point ahead of the Paraclete XP lineup (95).

Arizona Airspeed still had to be on the watch, as the 4-point lead was not enough to relax too much. There was much tougher competition in 8-way this year comnpared to the USPA Nationals in 2007 and 2008, where almost exactly the same Airspeed lineup (with Brian Johnson instead of John Hamilton) walked away with the USPA gold medals.

The Airspeed 8-way lineup had won by 23 points (18.9 - 16.8) over Knight Trax in Ottawa 2007 and then by 16 points (18.3 - 16.7) in Eloy 2008 over the US national 8-way team that competed in France at the World Meet 2008. Airspeed did not win the 8-way competition in 2008, as the French 8-way world champions visited Eloy and challenged the 8-way record marks at their last meet with this lineup.

France got very close to the Golden Knights' record for a single round (31) with the 30-pointer in Round 8, and also to the record average of 1997 (22.4) with the 22.2 average last year. It was a great farewell for the French 2-time world champions of 2006 and 2008, but Airspeed won the USPA gold medals.

It was very different this year, as two strong and well trained 8-way teams were ready to take on a slightly different Airspeed lineup in Texas. This time, Airspeed had no training at all, as the weather did not allow any training jumps before Round 1. There is usually enough time for a few warmup jumps between the end of the 4-way competition and the start of the 8-way competition, as it was in 2007 and 2008.

Not this year. Dennis Rook's four jumps in 2009 was all he would get. Round 9 of the 8-way competition at the USPA Nationals 2008 was the last 8-way jump together for this lineup. John Hamilton got his warmup jump already in Round 10 last year, where he filled in for Jack Jefferies who had to leave early. Round 1 of this year's competition would be the next one. This time, Hammo did the whole 10-round meet.

Jack Jefferies was better trained than Dennis Rook. He made approx. 25 jumps this year, including the Arizona Challenge of 2009. It was still a much more challenging situation before Round 1 than in 2007 and 2008. The Airspeed members knew it and took it seriously.

It is nothing new that the current 4-way lineup knows when to rise up to the occasion, as the streak of 20 consecutive victories proves. It was more a question how the other not so well trained Airspeed members would deal with the most challenging 8-way race in the history of USPA Nationals. The NSL News cannot recall a national championship where three US 8-way teams were so close to each other as this year.

All of the Airspeed members, trained or not so well trained, obviously still know how to peak perform at the right time. The 19.6 average after the ten rounds was significantly higher than the winning average of 2007 and 2008. In fact, it is the highest winning 8-way meet average at USPA Nationals since 2000. How did they do it without any training and with a new member in the lineup who has never been a world champion? Good question...

Back to the situation after Round 5 at this year's 8-way championship, the Golden Knights showed in rounds six and seven that they were not done yet, as they tied Airspeed's scores two times. The videos of these two rounds also show where Paraclete XP lost the meet and the tickets to Russia next year.

It was the funnel after the exit in Round 7, which was so costly that Paraclete could not catch up any more in the remaining three rounds, even though the team posted or tied the highscore for each round from then on. The Golden Knights ended up in second place and with the 8-way slot for the World Championship of Formation Skydiving 2010 in Russia.