posted Sep 8th, 2010 - The NSL News mentioned the race for the unofficial Scandinavian championship title a few times during the coverage of the World Championship of Formation Skydiving 2010 and has not picked up this special part of the event yet. It's time to make up for the delay, which resulted in a more comprehensive evaluation of the Scandinavian history.

Most of the times, the NSL News reports of teams in Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden when it comes to Scandinavian topics. However, Iceland is also a Scandinavian country and has had teams that competed at World Championships of Formation Skydiving in the past.

The NSL News went back in time and started the review of the Scandinavian history when the era of the current dive pool and rules for 4-way and 8-way competition began, at the World Meet 1985 in Yugoslavia. The chart shows which Scandinavian nations competed at the world meets, and it also shows the ranking order. Iceland had teams in 1993 and 2004.

Denmark dominated the first decade, with only Finland interfering once in 1987. The DeLand Norgies took over in 1997, and Arctery continued the Norwegian dominance for the next decade. It almost seems as if a Scandinavian nation takes and keeps the top position for one decade, as Norway's time was over this year, and Finland has taken over with the Pro Team's great performance in Menzelinsk. Sweden has not had a turn yet.

The Pro Team was the only Scandinavian team that advanced past the eight qualification rounds and made it into the semifinals in Menzelinsk. Finland's top contender for the last slot to the semifinals was the second Scandinavian team, Bodyflight Voluntas from Denmark.

It was a much closer race between those two teams than what the final leaderboard actually shows. In fact, the Pro Team only won with the better performance at the world record sequence of Round 3. The 6-point difference only in this round was enough for the Pro Team to win this Scandinavian duel. Bodyflight Voluntas actually won the other seven rounds by two points (115 - 113).

World Meet 2010 Scandinavian Teams		Round1	Round2	Round3	Round4	Round5	Round6	Round7	Round8	Round9	Round10	Total	Avg
Rank	AAA Class	10,7,12	3,11,5	J,M,Q,P,L	19,1,13	N,18,20	K,17,8	2,15,H	4,D,6	O,E,9,G	22,B,16	Total	Avg
10	Finland Pro Team	17	16	43	14	-	-	-	-	-	-	90	22.5
11	DK Bodyflight Voluntas	17	15	37	16	-	-	-	-	-	-	85	21.3
13	Sweden Bardagi	12	13	35	12	-	-	-	-	-	-	72	18.0
14	Norway X3M4S Elements	14	11	30	14	-	-	-	-	-	-	69	17.3

 

NSL-TV now features the first four rounds of the unofficial Scandinavian Championship at the World Meet 2010 in Menzelinsk, Russia. The videos of the Pro Team have been shown during the coverage of the race for the amateur title and are not part of this video show.

The four Scandinavian teams split up in two groups from the very beginning. The Pro Team had the better start and left Voluntas behind by seven points after three rounds. From then on, Finland's national 4-way team just had to defend the lead carefully.

Voluntas tried hard to come back and actually did so, as the difference was only four points after Round 8 when Voluntas had to stop. However, the Pro Team was on top of the lower half of the leaderboard, won the right for the semifinal round and put Finland's flag on the top of the Scandinavian rankings for the second time in history.

World Meet 2010 in Menzelinsk - Unofficial Scandinavian Championship

The second 2-way group of Scandinavian teams was just as close to each other as Finland and Denmark. Sweden's team Bardagi and X3M4S Elements from Norway ended up right next to each other on the leaderboard after eight rounds.

The situation was almost identical compared to the other Scandinavian duel. Bardagi took advantage of the fast sequence and won Round 3 by five points. X3M4S Elements won the other seven rounds by three points (96 - 93), but it was too late.

The videos feature the first four rounds. Both teams were tied going into the fast Round 3 after each winning a round at the beginning of the meet. Round 4 was the start of the Norwegian team's attempt to catch up with Bardagi.