posted Nov 14th, 2009 - The NSL-TV show for the weekend features the Top 10 Open Class teams with Round 8 at the 2009 USPA National Skydiving Championships.

It was a relatively "quiet" round where the scores of the Top 6 teams already confirmed the final rankings in perfect order. Golden Knights Gold, A4C and SDC Rhythm XP performed below their own standards in Round 8, as several teams from behind scored higher or tied their scores. However, the Top 6 had already settled in their positions, and there was a safe distance between Rhythm in 6th and Gradient Alpha in 7th place.

Only Arizona Airspeed and Spaceland Force XP scored 20 or higher in this round. It was the last serious test for the 4-way world champions to maintain the 20+ scores for every single round at this competition, and they succeeded once again with the 21-pointer sole highscore for the round.

Airspeed's highscore for Round 8 came with a creative way to get out of the 10-point memory for the front piece, which is usually caused by Block 12 (Bundy - Bundy). Point Eliana Rodriguez moved forward out of the center and back into her slot after the completion of Block 12 and to the next Donut (J).

The end of Block 19 (Ritz - Icepick) usually offers the opportunity to get "out of jail" without too much trouble. The front piece of the Force (Gary Beyer, Thomas Hughes) shows this more popular swing move in their own Round 8 performance.

Both swing moves worked well, as Airspeed and Force actually both completed 21 points within working time. However, the Spaceland team lost a point on the hill, and the NSL News cannot explain where and how. The audience may be able to help.

There was a third way how to get through the Round 8 sequence, and Perris Fury demonstrated it. The bronze medalists just accepted the memory and had a 10-point sequence for the front piece (Josh Hall, Christy Frikken). Apparently, the memory and B-slots slowed down the flow, as Fury ended up with a 19-pointer.

It was interesting to see that the best three teams on the leaderboard used three different ways how to engineer the same sequence.

The Golden Knights Gold team applied Perris Fury's engineering and accepted the memory for the front piece (Brian Krause, Kurt Isenbarger). The reason for the low 15-pointer is quite simple, as the penalty situation at the closing of Block 19 reduced the score from 17 points within working time to 15 on the scoreboard. The US Army team's 18th point was just out of working time.

The A4C pickup team of former world champions and Air Moves team mates used the same engineering as Spaceland Force XP and sent Point John Eagle into the center at the end of Block 19. A4C completed 17 points in working time after missing a few completions on the top pages. The audience can help the NSL News once again to look for penalty situations, as A4C ended up with 14 points on the scoreboard.

Round 8 was just as painful for SDC Rhythm XP. The 16 points within working time were reduced to a 13-pointer on the scoreboard. Once again, it is difficult to determine the penalty spots. A few of them are most likely located at the early part of the jump and related to the video angle. This was an area where the judges had set up the highest standards possible and where most of the points were lost. Enjoy the Round 8 show.