posted Jun 4th, 2011 - The first scores of this weekend's meets are from Germany where five teams compete in the AAA Class for the Northern German Championship 2011 title. Final Four DeLand is far ahead in 1st place, and the Usual Suspects own the 2nd place. Both teams have been on the NSL leaderboard in the past.

Meet Director Mathias "Mausi" Maushake reported that four of the five teams were dealing with injuries. Two Ususal Suspects have problems with their backs, another team member has a bad shoulder, and the last one jumps with a torn ligament in his foot. Only the Usual Suspect on camera is healthy.

A Phos4 member has an inflamed ellbow on the pulling side, and Pacmen is competing with an alternate. The older FSC Remscheid veterans under "Gelb, Jung und Schön" (Yellow, Young and Beautiful) are holding up alright as of injuries. Henning Stumpp had problems with his knee but has no trouble this weekend. Other than that, there is only one black eye caused by a Block 14 collision in a training jump.

North German Championship 2011		Round1	Round2	Round3	Round4	Round5	Round6	Round7	Total	Avg
Rank	AAA Class	21,15,O	20,12,3	G,1,H,9	11,A,L,7	17,P,N,8	10,F,14	D,2,K,5	Total	Avg
1	Final Four DeLand	16	14	18	18	16	16	18	116	16.6
2	Usual Suspects	12	12	15	17	14	11	17	98	14.0
3	Gelb Jung und Schoen	10	11	14	10	13	11	11	80	11.4
4	Phos4 Kassel	8	7	10	11	11	9	9	65	9.3
5	Pacmen	8	7	7	11	9	7	5	54	7.7

The Yellow, Young and Beautiful members of the FSC Remscheid Skydiving Club put together a colorful and interesting lineup. They have spent time together in various different lineups of the German national 4-way and 8-way teams in the past years.

They had actually a 5th German 4-way and 8-way veteran lined up for the meet. Olaf Biedermann eventually decided to help out for Pacmen who were missing a team member.

Olaf Biedermann and Henning Stumpp are both still members of the German 8-way national team. Uli Sehrbrock and Steffen Schiedek train and compete with X-Ray Remscheid. Mathias Maushake is the German national coach and runs the skydiving operation at the Kassel Skydiving Center, Aero Fallschirmsport. Dr. Rainer "Exi" Hoenle, President of the German Skydiving Federation (DFV) and member of IPC's Formation Skydiving Committee, is the Event Judge in Kassel this weekend. Mathias Maushake said that it is "raining point deductions".

Final Four DeLand is the defending champion and will keep the title. The team had posted a 17.5 average at the International Bunny Meet over six rounds in April. Three more rounds will hopefully be completed tomorrow, and Final Four DeLand will try to get to the same scoring level in a 10-round meet. No matter what - Final Four is expected to be a medal contender at the German Nationals later this year.

The German national coach also commented that Usual Suspects is performing well and is on the way to hold the 14-average after ten rounds. He also had a few words for his own lineup of Yellow, Young and Beautiful competitors:

"Nothing unusual with ups and downs in each round after a 10-year break from competition for some of us... The seven jumps today multiplied the jump number in the last six months for three team members. I have only been judging and organizing events for years. I had a ball, even though my body aches wherever there is a muscle..."

He finished his update with a weather report that should allow the completion of the meet before a front is coming in. He said that the popular Bistro in Kassel was quiet at the end of the day, while the beer was flowing and the meat sizzled on the grill: "Everybody is tired..."