posted Aug 7th, 2005 - There was a time in Formation Skydiving competition history when Canada was one of the leading nations in the world. Back in the 70's and 80's, think tank Eric Bradley invented the "Boxman" body position and structured the first and most successful load organizing system in Zephyrhills. Rob Laidlaw was an active competitor and guided Canadian 4-way and 8-way teams to medals at world championships and world cups. He later founded Skydive University together with Tom Piras. Peter Gannaw and Larry Boudreau were well known Canadian names.

Michel Lemay goes back to these days, and he is a current member of the new Canadian 4-way champion, Team Evolution. In fact, Michel Lemay (Outside Center) is the father of this team, literally. The Evolution line-up includes his two sons, Martin (Inside Center) and Vincent Lemay (Point). Francois Pigeon (Tail), co-founder of the team in 1999, completes the current line-up. Michel Lemay is also the co-founder and owner of the Nouvel Air Skydiving Center in Farnham, Quebec, Canada. That's the place where his family works and his team trains.

Lemay did his first jump in 1978, in Valcourt, Quebec. He went on to be part of the Canadian 8-way team "Osmose", which won the World Cup in Canada in 1983 against Mirror Image, B.J. Worth's US 8-way team. The Canada Cup was organized and sanctioned by the FAI/IPC after the World Championship of Formation Skydiving was to be held in South Africa, and representatives from Canada and the USA could not go because of international sanctions against the South African Apartheid policy.

In 1984, Michel Lemay was part of the 4-way team "Orisse" that represented Canada at the World Cup in LaPalisse, France. His teammates were none other than Neal Houston, Rob Laidlaw, and Daniel Paquette. Team Orisse went on to win the gold medals and see their names engraved on the Excalibur sword that year.

As years went by, Michel Lemay left competition and became more involved with teaching and instructing. He opened Nouvel Air Skydiving Center in 1990 with his long time 4-way and 8-way teammate, Daniel Paquette. In less than ten years, they were able to build one of the largest and safest skydiving centers in the country, annually making more than 2500 tandems and graduating about 100 AFF students per season.

The 4-way team Evolution is a project that started in 1999 when Francois Pigeon, Michel Messier, Mario Masseli and Richard Bisson came together to build the team. Since then, the team saw many personnel changes, and the current roster has been together since July 2004.

Their home drop zone is the Nouvel Air Skydiving Center in Farnham, Quebec, Canada. Nouvel Air is one of the largest skydiving centers in Canada and runs three Twin Beechcraft-18. Today, the roster includes Michel Lemay, co-owner of the Nouvel Air DZ, Martin and Vincent Lemay, sons of Michel, and Francois Pigeon, who did his first AFF jump ten years ago at Nouvel Air, with Michel Lemay and Michel Messier as his instructors.

Evolution won the Canadian national championship in 1999, but 1999 was a qualification off-year. The team was confident for 2000, however, after a disappointing meet Evolution placed only 4th at the Canadian championship in 2000. At the end of that year, Mario Masseli and Michel Messier left the sport for personal reasons, after more than a decade of skydiving each.

Francois Pigeon and Richard Bisson vowed to continue the project of building a 4-way team. At about the same time, Martin Lemay, barely 15 years old, had just completed his AFF training and was showing great interest in 4-way, as he was a very promising student. The three of them continued training in 4-way, trying with different members, but were never able to find the right fourth team player.

Michel Lemay took interest in Team Evolution in 2002, which Martin was now a part of. The team was still looking for a serious and competent fourth member. As his interest grew, Michel Lemay decided to join his oldest son and become a part of the team project.

For the first time, a serious training plan was now designed, with the goal of winning the Canadian national championship in 2003. The team asked Neal Houston of Airspeed, the former 4-way teammate of Michel Lemay, to be Evolution's coach. The team trained with Neal Houston at SkyVenture Orlando, and also at Skydive Arizona in Eloy.

Evolution missed the goal at the Canadian Nationals 2003 and placed only second behind Stratosfear. Evolution had completed only 100 training jumps together prior to the event and lost by five points, with 124 to 129. These missing five points were probably lost in a disastrous second round with two busts and one NJ.

After that meet, the team decided to continue with serious training and get ready for the Canadian national championship in 2005. At that point, they were joined by Peter Toutoudakis as the team videgrapher. Evolution continued the team's tunnel training at SkyVenture Orlando and with serious jumping in Eloy, all the while being coached by Neal Houston.

While the team was training in the tunnel with Neal Houston, Michel Lemay’s two youngest sons were also learning how to skydive in the tunnel, coached by another Airspeed member, Craig Girard. The two kids asked Craig Girard if they could try to launch a 4-way out of the tunnel door, and so they did, together with the Airspeed coach and father Michel. This was a first in the Orlando SkyVenture tunnel, and Craig Girard had this comment: "This is the coolest thing I ever saw in the tunnel!!".

In 2004, Vincent Lemay, Michel's second son, finally joined the team, in replacement for Richard Bisson. Vincent Lemay was barely 16 years old, however, he had 300 jumps and eight hours of tunnel time. His first jump was a tandem with his father at the age of four. His first AFF jump was at 15 years, a one-on-one, once again with his father. His second jump was a 4-way with three AFF instructors, including his brother and his father.

The current Evolution roster had been together for a year when the team arrived at the Canadian Nationals 2005. Evolution had one goal in mind, beating Stratosfear, the reigning Canadian champions, and representing Canada at the World Championship of Formation Skydiving 2006 in Germany.

Evolution did not only succeed this time, as the NSL News reported with the story on August 1. Evolution also broke the Canadian record for the most points in one competition jump with the score of 32 points in round two. Evolution member Francois Pigeon added that the score was actually 34 points, but the camera did not clearly show the first two formations. Evolution also scored a new Canadian record for the highest 10-round average with the 16.8 average at this year's championship.

Francois Pigeon provided more insights from the team's perspective: "Evolution is not posting scores that professional teams are able to do. But being weekend skydivers, AFF and tandem instructors, and also cameraflyers, the actual 4-way training is scarce and consists mainly of training camps during the winter time and training jumps during those slower days at the DZ, for a total of about 170 - 200 training jumps a year."

However, Evolution yet has to come up with a plan for the upcoming year of the world meet in Germany. Despite the job duties, the team thinks about setting high standards for the international comeback of Michael Lemay. Evolution has a top ten ranking and an 18-average in mind. Many training camps are already planned for the upcoming winter. The NSL News will surely follow up on the progression of the new Canadian national team. Hopefully, Evolution will also post many more great scores for the CanAm Skydiving League in 2006.

Richard Bisson, former Evolution member, who served as the chair of the competition committee for this year's Canadian national championship, provided the NSL News with additional team information. Richard Bisson also competed with team "Rafale" at the same event. He provided the picture of the teams on the podium with the Fun Flag. The NSL News had mentioned that the Fun Flag is currently in Canadian possession with the story on July 11.

Richard Bisson can be seen on the right side of the picture with bronze medal winner Rafale. Even though he is not an Evolution member any longer, he is still involved in bringing up new Canadian teams and competitors at the Nouvel Air Skydiving Center. Team Rafale is an example.

Bisson explained that the Canadian rules for the Intermediate Class competition allow one member with more than 750 jumps in the team. Even though Rafale would have been eligible, the team decided to register in the Open Class. Rafale had trained all the blocks and felt that it would be more fun and more challenge. "My team members, Nathalie Clermont (600 jumps), Patrick Tremblay (300 jumps) and Philippe Morin (200 jumps) did a terrific job of coping with the pressure of the 4th place finisher, Vertical Descent. I must say I'm pretty proud of Rafale."