posted Dec 5th, 2009 - The NSL News broke news about a new Russian 8-way lineup with the story on 30 November 2009. The story went back in time and covered the successful Russian 8-way history. However, only two of the team members were introduced with this story, Sergey Yalpaev and Vladimir Arutyunov.

The 8-way strength and experience of the new lineup comes mainly with two members who have been doing 4-way with the Sky Panthers in the past years. Oleg Shalamihin and Vladimir Pavlenko turned to 4-way competition only after several years with the most successful Russian 8-way lineup in history, the one that the NSL News mentioned in the previous article.

They competed for Russia's 8-way team already at the World Cup of 1998, won silver medals in Australia 1999 and then gold medals at the world meets in Spain 2001 and France 2003. Evolution Pro then became the new Russian 8-way team, while Oleg Shalamihin and Vladimir Pavlenko continued in 4-way.

Sky Panther Sergey Shenin joined his current 4-way team mates in the Russian 8-way world champion team at the World Cup in 2002 and won the 8-way gold medals in 2003. Oleg Shalamihin, Vladimir Pavlenko and Sergey Shenin switched to 4-way competition when team sponsors Mikhail Kuznetsov and Leonid Kazinets took turns jumping with the 8-way world champions with their Sky Panthers (Mikhail Kuznetsov) and Skylight Barkli (Leonid Kazinets) lineups.

The 2008 season with the World Championship of Formation Skydiving in France was mainly for Mikhail Kuznetsov and the Sky Panthers. Leonid Kazinets took over this year and competed with the three former 8-way world champions at four 10-round meets (19.3 - 20.5 - 20.6 - 21.0) including the FAI World Cup 2009.

Mikhail Kuznetsov and Leonid Kazinets will now switch from 4-way to serious 8-way competition for the first time in their competitive careers, while their Sky Panthers/Skylight Barkli team mates Oleg Shalamihin, Vladimir Pavlenko and Sergey Shenin go back to the event where they had their biggest international success.

The last missing piece in the Russian 8-way puzzle for the 2010 season is Aleksandr Tichinskii who has also been a Russian world class 4-way expert in the past years. He had owned the same 4-way world record for a single round that Sergey Yalpaev scored with Extreme.RU at the Malevsky Cup 2006. After Extreme.RU Sergey Yalpaev continued with Gradient Alpha/Crystal while Aleksandr Tichinskii trained and competed with Cross Road.

Cross Road was one of the busiest teams of the 2009 season, scored a 19.0 average at the Russian Nationals 2009 and finished the year at the World Cup 2009, as well. Team member Dmitry Fridman traveled to DeLand in November for SkyQuest 2009 and explained to the NSL News that Cross Road will not continue next year.

Cross Road member and former world record holder Aleksandr Tichinskii will now switch to 8-way competition, as well, and join the powerful combination of Russian 4-way and 8-way experts in the new 8-way lineup for the 2010 season.

The Russian move in 8-way will probably close the door to 8-way medals for other potential contenders, as the three Formation Skydiving powerhouses USA, France and Russia have once again very strong 8-way lineups.

The USA has a new and young Golden Knights lineup for the 2010 competition.

France is the defending 8-way world champion of 2006 and 2008 and is working on bringing up the new lineup to the gold medal speed.

The new Russian 8-way lineup is planning to train a lot and will not need much time to get to the top scoring and performance level. There is a very good chance that there will be a very exciting 8-way competition at the World Meet 2010 in Russia. The NSL News will bring it to the audience with live coverage from Menzelinsk.

World Championship of Formation Skydiving 2010
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