posted Mar 2nd, 2010 - The NSL News coverage of the Valentine's Meet 2010 is almost complete. Only the meet videos of the Dutch/Belgian 4XTT combination still need to be processed and uploaded.

Then it'a about time to get ready for the next high-profile competition after the Dubai Championship. The FSL Shamrock Showdown 2010 is coming up soon, and it will once again bring together some of the best teams in the world in DeLand.

The event pages have already been prepared, including the pages of the teams that have already confirmed their attendance this year. Several other teams usually join the Shamrock competition on a shorter notice.

There are two event pages for the first time in the Shamrock Showdown history, as three 8-way teams will also compete this year. The NSL News story on 3 February 2010 had already announced this new Shamrock feast.

The Shamrock Showdown 2010 will begin with the 8-way competition on Friday morning. Goal is to complete five rounds before the competition draw for the 4-way teams at noon. Friday afternoon will be dedicated to a few rounds in 4-way for all teams. Additional six or seven rounds of 4-way competition will follow on Saturday and the 4-way wrap-up on Sunday morning. The second half of the 8-way competition will then be completed on Sunday, as well.

A quick look at the 2009 leaderboard shows that the results of the Shamrock Showdown provide a quite accurate idea of what will be happening in the upcoming season. In fact, the three US top contenders of 2009, Arizona Airspeed, Spaceland Force XP and Perris Fury, ended up exactly in the same ranking order after the ten Shamrock 2009 rounds as they finished at the end of the season at the USPA Nationals 2009.

This year, the World Championship of Formation Skydiving 2010 is the most important outdoor competition of the year. The three nations that won the medals at the World Meet 2008 in France, USA - France - Belgium, will have their presence at the Shamrock Showdown 2010, as well.

Perris Fury will represent the US top 4-way competition. Fury will not compete in Russia, as Airspeed is the US national 4-way team. However, Fury has been getting closer to the 4-way world champions from Arizona step by step and meet by meet, and the Perris team plans to defeat Airspeed at any upcoming opportunity.

France (Aerodyne Cypres Maubeuge) and Belgium (Hayabusa Defence) are coming to DeLand with their original world class lineups. The French national team had to replace Mathieu Bernier in Dubai and could not keep up with Hayabusa and Airspeed. This will be different at the Shamrock Showdown where the French Point will be back in his slot.

This will be the first showdown between France and Belgium this year with both original lineups. Perris Fury and Paraclete's new XP4 lineup will defend the US home turf and offer as much strong resistance as Airspeed would. The same four world class teams will then all travel to Bedford and compete at the World Challenge 2010. Airspeed will be back in the mix by then after watching the Shamrock Showdown only on NSL-TV...