posted Jul 24th, 2011 - The CISM Championship in Brazil is over, and the results of Round 8 did not change the rankings after the semifinal Round 7. It became quite exciting though, as the NSL News had mentioned at the last update.

The official scores show that the Golden Knights outscored Germany by three points in the last round, which tied the total number of points between the two silver medal contenders. Both teams had to get ready for a jump-off.

However, André Ferraz reported bad weather from Brazil on the last day of the competition, and the jump-off had to be canceled. He only said that another method was used to break the tie and that the German team ended up in 2nd place. Most likely, the judges used the IPC rules, which gives the team with the highest score for a single round the advantage. Germany's 40-pointer in Round 1 was probably the winner.

CISM 2011		Round 1	Round 2	Round 3	Round 4	Round 5	Round 6	Round 7	Round 8	Total	Avg
Rank	4-way Men	M,F,H,19	M,B,G,22	M,P,E,13	M,K,O,4	M,Cat,C,11	M,L,J,10	M,Q,N,21	M,A,D,7	Total	Avg
1	Belgium NMP-PCH Hayabusa	43	29	35	35	34	34	34	44	288	36.0
2	Germany	40	30	32	32	29	29	29	35	256	32.0
3	USA Golden Knights	34	28	35	28	28	32	33	38	256	32.0
4	Switzerland	17	25	30	27	23	25	29	36	212	26.5
5	Brazil X-Dogs	28	22	29	23	24	23	24	32	205	25.6
10	Qatar Falcons	22	22	20	21	17	19	20	-	141	20.1
11	Ireland Fast Air	24	16	18	22	17	18	21	-	136	19.4

NMP-PCH Hayabusa raised the level of 4-way performance once again and finished with a 36.0 average in Rio. It was, of course, no surprise that Hayabusa would win the CISM gold medals. It was the 4th time since 2007 that Hayabusa brought this title to Belgium, almost each time with a different lineup.

It is not even a surprise that the CISM 4-way title in the male category goes to Belgium at all. Other Belgian lineups have done this, too, before the Hayabusa members joined the Belgian military forces. In fact, Belgium has won the CISM gold medals in this category every single time since 2001.

The 36.0 average at the CISM competition with its easier rules is still an impressive feast. It is far above the highest meet average that was ever scored, including indoor competitions. Hayabusa's 30.5 winning average at the World Challenge 2011 was not even close. Now the World Cup 2011 is coming up, and Hayabusa will bring a lot of confidence to Germany.

The German CISM team will not have a re-match with Hayabusa in Saarlouis, as the NSL News reported earlier. Torsten Kunke, professional military coach of the team, informed the NSL News that the team members train 4-way "only" as their third event. Training and competition is mainly focused on the classical events of Accuracy and Style.

Thomas "Spieli" Spielvogel, multiple German 4-way and 8-way champion who will compete with the German national 8-way team and 4-way team Dynamite at the upcoming World Cup, knows the team members and said that it is the best CISM lineup that Germany has ever had. He added that the same linup also won CISM silver medals last year in Switzerland with a 28.3 average and made quite a few training jumps before this year's event. He did not seem as surprised of the German performance as the Golden Knights may have been.

The team members are still relatively young of age. Stefan Wiesner (Tail - 29), Sebastian Lutz (Center Outside - 29), Joseph Demmler (Point - 26), Marius Weber (Center Inside - 27) have been training together in Germany's military sports elite group for several years. Marius Weber was the last team member who was selected in 2006.

The scoring progression of the team since 2006 (22.9 - 24.6 - 28.3 - 32.0) shows clearly that this year's results are only a result of the training and not a big surprise. The German top 4-way teams in IPC's Formation Skydiving category may consider themselves lucky that the German CISM lineup does not train more and attend the national championships.

Keeping up with the Golden Knights shows that the team has the potential to be a world class team with adequate training of the complete dive pool. NMP-PCH Hayabusa, Golden Knights, X-Dogs, Qatar Falcons and Fast Air enjoy training and competition in both worlds, the military and the civilian 4-way meets and dive pools.

Purpose of the dual mission for those teams is the promotional part in the civilian world. It would be a great mix for the German CISM team, as well. Maybe the silver medals with a 32.0 average will encourage the team members, coach Torsten Kunke and the military leadership in Germany to send the team to the IPC and NSL meets, as well...