posted Oct 27th, 2009 - Three guest teams from Denmark, Russia and Australia competed at the 2009 USPA National Skydiving Championships. The Russian 4-way team Crystal, a.k.a. Gradient Alpha, has been one of the busiest competitors of the 2009 season.

Vladimir Arutyunov (Center Outside), Andrey Kalugin (Point), Valery Kryshevich (Tail) and Sergey Yalpaev (Center Inside), with Andrey Tretyakov on camera at the USPA Nationals 2009, have attended six 4-way meets this year. In addition, they also competed for Russia in 8-way at the FAI World Cup 2009. The pickup 8-way team of the two 4-way lineups, Crystal Contour, had won the one and only 8-way round at the Russian Nationals 2009 and decided to travel to the Czech Republic and compete there, as well. They won the bronze medals without any previous training after a battle with the Spanish 8-way team Flezion.

Crystal/Gradient Alpha went back to 4-way competition after the World Cup and added another meet to the 2009 travel experience, the USPA Nationals 2009. Last year's national championship in Eloy already had another Russian team compete as a guest team. Black Cat had made the trip to the US west coast. Interestingly, both teams had something in common when it was time for the fast Round 6 at Spaceland.

Crystal/Gradient Alpha had opened the 2009 season with a 13.4 average at the Valentine's Meet 2009 in February. The next trip to the next meet brought the team to Florida and the FSL Shamrock Showdown 2009 in March, for a 14.0 average after ten rounds.

The next three meets kept Crystal/Gradient Alpha on their Russian home soil. A local meet in May (15.6) and the Moscow Championship in June (17.9) prepared the busiest Russian team of the 2009 season for this year's championship in Menzelinsk, host of next year's World Championship of Formation Skydiving. The 18.0 average was the highest meet average of the 2009 season. World Cup 2009 (8-way) and USPA Nationals 2009 (17.2) concluded this year's meet schedule for Crystal/Gradient Alpha.

The competition in Texas came to a special situation for Crystal/Gradient Alpha's Center Inside, Sergey Yalpaev, when it was time for Round 6. And that's the point where Black Cat comes back into the picture. Black Cat, Russian national 4-way champion of 2009, and Sergey Yalpaev were both holders of the world record for a single round before Round 6 of the USPA Nationals 2009.

Sergey Yalpaev trained and competed with Extreme.RU in 2005 (19.2 - 20.3) and 2006. Vladimir Akopov, Alexander Tychinskiy, Nikolay Vylegshanin and Sergey Yalpaev, with Maxim Tikhomirov on camera, came to the Malevsky Cup 2006 after finishing with a 21.3 average at the Russian Nationals 2006 in June. It was only good enough for the 3rd place, as Sky Panthers and Black Cat were already dominating the Russian 4-way competition by then.

However, the Extreme.RU lineup was obviously well prepared to put some great numbers on the leaderboard. It was still somehow surprising when Extreme.RU with Sergey Yalpaev in the lineup posted a 44-pointer in Round 10 for the fast sequence of random formations (H-O-B-Q-E). France and Fastrax had already tried and missed before Extreme.RU. Black Cat came next and tied the 44-pointer, which has been the world record for a single round ever since.

Black Cat was not on competition site at the USPA Nationals this year when the record fell in Round 6. Sergey Yalpaev was, as he has been guiding Crystal/Gradient Alpha through the 2009 season. He witnessed the hunt for the new world record at Spaceland, as Perris Fury fell short, Arizona Airspeed tied the old number and Spaceland Force XP eventually posted a 45-pointer.

He took it easy and visited the Airspeed members shortly after he lost his world record. He brought with him a bottle of good old Russian vodka and handed it to Craig Girard. Airspeed and Sergey Yalpaev now had a 44-pointer in common, Airspeed for a second time this year after another 44-pointer at the World Games 2009. They may have needed the vodka later to forget about the 45-pointer together...

Crystal/Gradient Alpha still had a good reason to celebrate themselves. The team's own 33-pointer in Round 6 was by far the highest score for a single round this year.