posted Aug 20th, 2011 - UK correspondent Jo Hawley brought the 4way competition of the UK Nationals 2011 to the attention of the NSL News audience with a summary on 17 August 2011. This weekend she is busy with the Brit Chicks who are trying to win the 8way gold medals this year.

It's a tough job since the defending 8way champions of MicroClim8 are in good shape, as well. MicroClim8 won easily with a 12.2 average last year. The Brit Chicks were at the 8way beginnings by then and finished in 2nd place with an 8.9 average. It's a horse race this year, and MicroClim8 is up by only five points after five rounds (69 - 64).

In the meantime, another British team that competed in 4way at the World Cup and at the UK Nationals shared the meet experiences with the NSL News. Escondido member Brian Cumming enjoyed the trip with his team to Germany: "Germany was excellent as a trip, representing your country is amazing and the opening ceremony was uber-cool. The crowd was four deep in places. Unreal."

World Cup 2011		Round 1	Round 2	Round 3	Round 4	Round 5	Round 6	Round 7	Round 8	Round 9	Total	Avg
Rank	4way Open Class	C,22,19	E,M,1,2	12,9,16	O,8,10	Q,14,5	P,17,K,18	21,L,J,13	3,11,B	20,G,H,4	Total	Avg
10	SonicNutz	11 (-1)	16 (-1)	16	12 (-2)	15 (-1)	16	16 (-1)	16	16	134	14.9
14	Unagi	10	16	12	13	12	13	13	11	-	100	12.5
16	Escondido	12	15	10 (-1)	11 (-1)	12 (-1)	12 (-2)	12	9 (-2)	-	93	11.6

He said that Escondido was not overly happy with the team performance though: "Our flying, however, was not our best work. We can’t really explain what happened except that we think our awesomeness missed the ferry on the way out there..."

Escondido suffered seven point deductions, which seemed to come at critical times: "Just as we were dusting ourselves off and getting up for it again..." as Brian Cumming remembered. His team was not happy with some of the calls: "Several were very harsh, like white glove over a white background, run-in directly at the sun, etc., but also a couple of daft ones." He added that the team missed seven or eight block catches, which slowed down the rhythm: "It wasted the time you need to get to the random sprint."

NSL-TV used the opportunity of the additional feedback from the United Kingdom to upload the first four rounds of the three UK teams at the World Cup, and the point deductions were also added to the internal UK leaderboard. It brought back the same issue that was mentioned earlier, as a closer look at the Escondido videos questions more of the judging calls that Brian Cumming mentioned.

The Escondido exit of Round 5, a Phalanx, offers a textbook execution of how to present everything correctly to the judges. As most of the teams, Escondido does not launch a ready Phalanx. The Tail has to switch from a left-hand grip to a right-hand grip, and the front piece has to drop the stabilizing grip connection of the exit. The Center Inside has to check the completion of both tasks in the front and the rear before he/she breaks the formation.

Escondido executes this order of chores perfectly, and the camera captures the hole action from a proper angle. Not even the judges could have a doubt that there was a correct Escondido Phalanx flying on the subterminal air. Bad luck - the Phalanx still did not count as a scoring formation.

The judges' interpretation of "clearly presented" is once again the trap, this time for Escondido. It is a strange interpretation since the Phalanx is clearly presented by the team. However, the judges say in those cases that they cannot see all grips, even though they may know that the formation is complete.

The interpretation of the same rule is different in other situations and contradicts this one.

The judges do not make a call strictly on what they can see and what not when it comes to the freeze frame situation at the end of the working time. A recent rule change of the freeze frame situation came after a discussion where the judges insisted on having room for interpretation of the last image that they see.

They wanted the freedom to possibly not score a complete formation if they had the impression that the freeze frame image did not show what actually happened. Before the rule change, the judges had to score a formation that looked complete at freeze frame time, no matter what they thought about it. Teams are now often surprised when a formation looks complete at freeze frame time and doesn't count as a scoring formation.

Freedom for interpretation and "common sense" at freeze frame time - yes, the same at exit formations and other occasions - no. It is no surprise that the teams are confused at times and wonder about their scores.

Busted Phalanx or not - Escondido was glad to get an opportunity for redemption, as Brian Cumming explained: "Adding it all up we were quite disappointed and were very glad to have an opportunity to redeem ourselves so quickly. And given our other scores this year we feel that we scored close to what we deserved at the British Nationals. Catches closed, our aggression paid off, and we knew to throw a stupidly large key on the hill on certain exits! We’re very happy and planning the next two years already."

He added a summary of the 4way competition of the UK Nationals from the Escondido perspective.

UK Nationals 2011

55 FS teams and 3 VFS teams caused this to be the largest UK National Championship to date. With 17 teams in the AAA Class, the competition in the middle of the pack is getting harder with more teams jostling than ever for position. Fortunately Hibaldstow knows how to put on a show, and eight rounds were done for every team by Sunday night despite several lengthy weather holds. Only the AAA Class semi-final and final carried over onto the Monday.

Satori, with Milko replacing Katie Woods at Point, continued their domination of the AAA Class competition without seeming to miss a beat. SonicNutz scored a strong second, another team that didn’t quite perform at the World Cup as they thought they might, but came back strong.

Boogie Nights and Vision were both player coach teams (Steve Hamilton and Katie Woods with BN and Pete Allum and Liz Matthews with Vision) and both guest teams, so they did not qualify for medals. They flew smoothly, with Boogie Nights getting both busted loads on some jumps and getting lucky with other “grips” that seemed a surprise to the crowd from their vocal reaction to the video!

Bodyflight Aerodyne, another player coach team (Sarah Smith and Amanda Kemp) took the bronze medal position. Their 14 exit on Round 4 resulted in one of the largest cheers of the weekend, with the Center Inside flying her slot on exit without tension, but on her back before calmly flipping over into slot and carrying on. Video on youtube soon they promise. Becs and Vic Bradley were very pleased with a shiny bronze medal in their first year in the AAA Class.

Kaizen finished well but were for a short period looking in shock after Round 2 when they posted a 9-pointer as the C (Murphy Flake) exit funnelled due to the pilot banking the plane not realising they were still there. They scored a competitive 15 on the rejump enabling them to power on and take 4th.

Escondido finished 5th and Unagi kept up their respectable scores in their first AAA Class season.