posted Jul 26th, 2010 - The NSL News story on 24 July 2010 provided an overview of the 8-way and female 4-way competition at the World Championship of Formation Skydiving 2010. This year, only the three powerhouses of Formation Skydiving competition, USA, France and Russia, have sent teams in all three categories to the event. It is time now to switch back to the most popular event of the world meet, the Open Class competition in 4-way.

FS teams from 21 nations will be competing in Menzelinsk, Russia, beginning this upcoming Sunday. 20 national teams compete in the 4-way Open Class. Brazil is the 21st nation and has one team in the female 4-way category.

16 nations of 2008 are coming back with teams (Belgium, Canada, China, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Lithuania, Netherlands, Norway, Russia, South Africa, Sweden, United Kingdom, USA). Seven nations of 2008 have not registered any teams in the Open Class (Australia, Austria, Brazil, Cyprus, Slovakia, Switzerland, Turkey), while four new nations will have teams in Russia (Kazakhstan, Portugal, Slovenia, Ukraine). The NSL News begins the introduction of the 4-way Open Class teams starting from the top of the 2008 leaderboard.

The Road to Russia

The three medal winners of 2008 (Arizona Airspeed, Aerodyne Cypres Maubeuge, NMP-PCH Hayabusa) are very well known since they have continued for two more years. There are some changes though.

Airspeed and Maubeuge still have exactly the same linups as in 2008. However, three of the French 4-way team members have given up 8-way training and competition after winning 8-way gold medals in 2006 and 2008. They have focused on 4-way since 2008. Only Point Mathieu Bernier has continued with training and competing in both events.

Hayabusa had a personnel change and a complete scramble of the slots after the World Meet in 2008. Waedong So has replaced former Center Inside Luc Verstrepen who is still the alternate for the team. Waedong So took the Point slot, and all other team members ended up in new positions.

World Meet 2008 in France		Round1	Round2	Round3	Round4	Round5	Round6	Round7	Round8	Total	Avg
Rank	AAAClass	B,17,7	H,N,13,A	10,J,C,6	18,12,2	E,3,9	19,O,4	D,M,5,16	14,20,21	Total	Avg
1	USA Airspeed Odyssey	30	32	24	16	29	21	28	15	195	24.4
2	France Maubeuge	28	30	23	17	27	23	28	18	194	24.3
3	Belgium HayaBusa Defence	27	33	23	17	27	22	25	17	191	23.9
4	Russia Sky Panthers	28	30	22	16	28	20	27	17	188	23.5
5	Norway Arcteryx	27	29	21	17	25	21	26	14	180	22.5
6	Canada Evolution	25	27	22	17	24	18	26	16	175	21.9

Russia's Sky Panthers were only three points behind the bronze medals in 2008 and come back with exactly the same lineup. Three team members are also competing in 8-way. Only Michail Kuznetsov has just the 4-way event on the meet agenda.

Norway's world class Arcteryx lineup was in 5th place in 2008. Norway is now in the building process of a new top team and not expected to make it to the finals this year. Italy's national team Sinapsi will challenge the medal rankings this year and take Norway's slot in the finals.

Canada's Lemay family team Evolution was recently covered extensively by the NSL News. There is hardly any doubt that the same lineup of 2008 will end up at least in 6th place again, but with a significantly higher meet average. The open question is whether Evolution will be able to move up in the rankings or not. It might be a very tight top of the leaderboard this year. There is probably also one challenger from behind, UK's national team Satori, which will be covered later. Six more days...