posted Sep 7th, 2005 - The 4-way competition could not have been any more exciting. The NSL News will follow up later today with more information, footage, interviews. Now, what will the 8-way competition have to offer? It seems like there is really nothing similar to be expected. Arizona Airspeed is the reigning 8-way world champion after beating France and Russia last year in Croatia.

Two Airspeed 2004 members, Mike Inabinet and Christopher Talbert, did not come back for the 2005 season. Brian Johnson and Andy Delk filled the open slots. How fast would the new line-up catch up with the world champion performance of 2004? Airspeed had less training available for 8-way this year since 4-way now received the same attention. Goal was to win both events at the USPA Nationals 2005. It did not work out in 4-way. Airspeed Odyssey finished in 3rd place yesterday as the winning Airspeed 4-way of the two line-ups. The double gold goal has to rest for now.

However, the reduced training efforts did not seem to hurt the 8-way performance very much. The new 8-way line-up with the two new members lost its first 8-way competition at the Malevsky Cup 2005 in Russia against France. Airspeed still posted a 19.8 meet average after the ten rounds in Russia, which was already clearly higher compared to the gold medal average of 19.1 in Croatia 2004.

The Malevsky Cup 2005 was at the beginning of July. Airspeed focused mostly on the 4-way event from then on since the USPA 8-way gold medals seemed to be unchallenged this year. Things might have changed when the Golden Knights decided to go after the double gold in 2005, as well. The NSL News story on July 27 offered more background information of the Golden Knights' 8-way project.

Nobody knows by now how much the serious charge of the Golden Knights into the 8-way competition might have changed the situation for Airspeed. Is this a real threat? Will the Golden Knights be able to get even close to the performance level that Airspeed has already shown last year and this year?

The Golden Knights are serious with their challenge. A closer look at the line-up shows how serious the charge could be. The four slots to be added to the Golden Knights Black team were filled by Kurt Isenbarger, Vernon Miller, Eric Heinsheimer and Carey Mills. Do these names sound familiar?

Yes, each of these "new" members is a former 8-way world champion. This means that the four "slot fillers" have more experience in 8-way than the current Golden Knights Black 4-way team that won the silver medals yesterday. This Golden Knights 8-way line-up has also trained, and it does not take a lot of training to bring back the required 8-way skills.

There are more interesting 8-way stories to come. Round one is in progress, the first scores will show whether there will be a competition for the gold medals or not. Stay tuned.