posted Aug 21st, 2011 - The NSL-TV aftermath of the World Cup 2011 continues with the videos of Round 3 in the 8way competition.

As usual, the videos come together with an updated leaderboard that shows the point deductions for all teams, as well. Dirk Venter, who was a judge in Saarlouis-Duren, Germany, and who is also running the InTime scoring system that was used at the World Cup, kindly provided the penalty information for the NSL News.

Several of the point deductions caused some trouble that the NSL News has covered with previous stories. The judges at the World Cup did not appreciate very much the NSL News coverage and commentary related to the judging issues. The story on 18 August 2011 provided feedback from a neutral judge observer who was not in Germany, Steve Miller. The NSL News now follows up with input from Elisabet Pettersson, who was the Chief Judge for Formation Skydiving events at the World Cup 2011.

World Cup 2011		Round 1	Round 2	Round 3	Round 4	Round 5	Round 6	Round 7	Round 8	Round 9	Total	Avg
Rank	8way Open	7,M,15	8,14,D	5,18,J	B,9,2	Q,K,12,20	21,A,F,10	1,4,E	13,P,H,6	L,19,17	Total	Avg
1	Golden Knights	23	18	18	19	23	21	25	20	19	186	20.7
2	Aerodyne Maubeuge	21	18	19	18	23	19	29	21	17	185	20.6
3	Sky Panthers Barkli	17	15	14 (-2)	17	16	15	19	19	15	147	16.3
4	Germany EADS	15 (-1)	13	14	9	16	15	22	15	14	133	14.8
5	Switzerland VIVA	15	11	12	14	15	14	18	14	-	113	14.1
6	UK Brit Chicks	10 (-1)	10 (-1)	11	11	13	11	15	13	10	104	11.6
7	Germany Südwest	12	9 (-1)	8	10	11	11	12	12	11	96	10.7
8	Russia Phoenix 11	11	8	9 (-2)	11	10	11	9	11	6	86	9.6
9	Netherlands M8Trix	8	6 (-1)	9 (-1)	6	9	8	9	11	8	74	8.2
10	Germany Saar 8	7	7	4 (-2)	7	3	5	5	8	6	52	5.8

I just read your comments on the World Cup: “The US team had regular conditions for approx. 43 seconds, as the video shows, as well. From then on, it was more or less guessing whether formations and maneuvers were correct or not. However, the judges continued to press the button for the scoring formations as it has never been seen before in such conditions.” This is not exactly true. Judges have seen a lot of jumps during these conditions and also during this meet this weather was not at all unusual. I think it is very unfair of you to make such a statement. The judges did not at all "guess" formations and manoeuvres, they were perfectly judgeable. Besides you don't have any freeze frame on your uploaded video, the competitors saw the jump on a big screen far away and in daylight. The judges watch the video in a dark room under perfect circumstanses. I have been to every FCE since 1993 and I can tell you that this conditions and weather have been seen before and decided by the judges to be ok for assessment of the dives at many competitions. You also write: “A German 8way competitor may have expressed well how many others thought about the situation: "It's a difficult situation. The Golden Knights won the round and the meet and deserve the victory. However, it is still a joke that the scoring points were given. He also added that the situation could have been avoided if the judges had not delayed the start of Round 9. He explained that the judges insisted on their lunch break before judging Round 10 in 4way, which caused at least a 45-minute delay.” The statement about lunch is absolutely false. To clarify this and also the judgeability of the last two dives of 8-way you just had to get out of your room, walk 4 meters and knock on the judging room, you never talked to me as a Chief judge or to any of the Event Judges. I have the timestamp from when the videographers uploaded their videos and the timestamp from the scoring system, the final score sheet. At maximum there was a 20 minute time between uploading and judging and that was because the judges were waiting for all 4-way teams to have their videos uploaded before starting the judging. As a request from the teams and the organizer! Judges never had a 45 minute lunch break; in fact the judges took turns on having lunch so the judging never stopped due to lunch. As a maximum the judges also had 20 minutes for lunch never longer, usually shorter. And they never insisted on lunch break not this day nor any other days. I don’t expect this clarification would be published on your web, because it probably doesn’t fit into whatever purpose you have by discrediting the judges who worked long days for the competitors. I usually follow your comments and enjoy them, but this time I am very disappointed when you write things that isn’t even close to the true story. Best regards Elisabet Pettersson Chief Judge FS World Cup 2011

The new videos show that the weather interfered already earlier in the meet, not only when the Golden Knights performed their meet winning Round 9 in critical conditions.

Rain and limited visibility on exit altitude in Round 3 created difficult conditions for the teams and their videographers who tried to stay focused while dealing with the weather. However, according to the score sheets the point deductions for Saar 8 and M8Trix were not caused directly by the weather conditions, which might have offered the option of a re-jump. The judges could not see the complete formation or all four pieces of Block 5's inter in the frame at the same time.

The fact that teams and videographers were probably quite distracted by the adverse weather conditions during the first seconds was not relevant enough, especially as the teams don't have to jump if they don't like the conditions. The Golden Knights did not know that clouds would interfere at the end of their working time. But their formations and maneuvers were obviously clearly presented anyway, as they collected all scoring points within working time.