posted Jan 8th, 2011 - Another scoring update came unexpectedly late from the Dubai Championship 2011. The judges returned to their desks after dinner, completed the scores for Round 3 in both 4-way events and even added Round 4 in the female category.

NMP-PCH Hayabusa's Roy Janssen was right when he predicted bad news for his team after finishing the day: "Today two more rounds in the books. Round 3 was an average jump, as Andy already mentioned. Probably we have 3 busts in it which means 33 down to 30."

The judges had only a 30-pointer for Hayabusa, and Arizona Airspeed didn't have much more luck. An earlier NSL News story mentioned that Airspeed had completed 33 points in working time. The scores of Round 3 have eventually put Aerodyne Aerokart to the place where the current results of the NSL Poll expect the French team - in 1st place.

Dubai Championship 2011		Round1	Round2	Round3	Round4	Round5	Round6	Round7	Round8	Total	Avg
Rank	4-way Open	P,17,18	M,N,F,3	H,A,6,B	Q,1,C,14	4,10,15	16,O,J,22	K,2,E,11	G,9,8	Total	Avg
1	FranceAerodyne Aerokart	24	33	33	-	-	-	-	-	90	30.0
2	BelgiumNMP-PCH Hayabusa	24	34	30 (-2)	-	-	-	-	-	88	29.3
3	USAArizona Airspeed	23	33	31 (-2)	-	-	-	-	-	87	29.0
4	RussiaGradient Alpha	19	29	28	-	-	-	-	-	76	25.3
5	RussiaBlack Cat	20	22(-1)	25	-	-	-	-	-	67	22.3
6	RussiaFS3	14	18	22	-	-	-	-	-	54	18.0
7	FranceAir Force	10	18	18	-	-	-	-	-	46	15.3
8	FranceMonaco Aerial	10	19	16	-	-	-	-	-	45	15.0
9	QatarTigers	13	14	17	-	-	-	-	-	44	14.7
10	QatarFalcon	9(-1)	14	13	-	-	-	-	-	36	12.0
11	SouthAfrica	9	14	12	-	-	-	-	-	35	11.7
12	U.A.E.	9	11	13	-	-	-	-	-	33	11.0
13	GermanyBlack Moon	8(-1)	8	11 (-2)	-	-	-	-	-	27	9.0
14	GermanyConnatural	5(-3)	10(-3)	9	-	-	-	-	-	24	8.0
15	Brazil	5	5	9	-	-	-	-	-	19	6.3
16	Slovakia	0	7	7	-	-	-	-	-	14	4.7
17	Malaysia	3	4	6	-	-	-	-	-	13	4.3
18	BahrainMilitary	3	2	3	-	-	-	-	-	8	2.7
19	SaudiArabia A	1	2	0	-	-	-	-	-	3	1.0
20	SaudiArabia B	0	0	0	-	-	-	-	-	0	0.0

Chief Judge Dr. Rainer "Exi" Hoenle also kindly provided the penalties for the first two rounds, which have been added to the leaderboard below, thanks to Exi in Dubai.

The standings in the 4-way Female Class are still as they were expected, however, the competition has been much more interesting than probably expected. The US pickup team Alpha Armada had a very impressive Round 3 and keeps challenging the French world champions.

Aerodyne Cypres and Alpha Armada would both be in 5th place in the Open Class after three rounds. The US team had reduced the French lead to one single point after the 30-pointer in Round 3.

However, the French 4-way tourists in Dubai showed why they won the World Championship of Formation Skydiving 2010, came back strongly in Round 4 and increased the lead to four points. The meet is still far from over, as there are four more rounds to go.

Dubai Championship 2011		Round1	Round2	Round3	Round4	Round5	Round6	Round7	Round8	Total	Avg
Rank	4-way Female	P,17,18	M,N,F,3	H,A,6,B	Q,1,C,14	4,10,15	16,O,J,22	K,2,E,11	G,9,8	Total	Avg
1	France Aerodyne Cypres	20	26	28	20	-	-	-	-	94	23.5
2	USA Alpha Armada	17	26	30	17	-	-	-	-	90	22.5
3	Russia Illusions	16	21	22 (-1)	15	-	-	-	-	74	18.5
4	Spain Empuria Gatas	11	14	13	10 (-1)	-	-	-	-	48	12.0
5	Denmark Lady Vikings	8	13	12 (-1)	11	-	-	-	-	44	11.0
6	Canada	4	9	8	0 (-2)	0	0	0	0	21	2.6

Alpha Armada's Hannah Betts provided a half-time summary for the US team after a visit to the Souk Markets at the end of the day:

"The bartering at the Souk Markets wore us out, but we're recovering with a glass of red wine in our hotel room...

The organization and support for this meet is simply out of this world - it really compares to other mainstream top sporting events! Between the spectacular air displays, AMAZING opening ceremonies and jumping ON to the Palm it's difficult to remember that we're actually here to do a 4 way meet!

None the less we are very happy with our jumps so far. The first jump was a little wobbly, after we landed we had a chat about our game plan and decided that full speed ahead was our only, and best option at this point in time! In particular, we're thrilled with the 3rd round. After Round 4 we find ourselves behind the French by 4 points, and are very happy to be hovering within spitting distance of them."

Hannah Betts also mentioned that German competitors were spotted with the Fun Flag, which has not been flying so far. The NSL News will hopefully be able to follow up with the first Fun Flag story.