posted Sep 12th, 2011 - A very interesting competition begins tomorrow in Russia. The national championship brings together the four top teams in the Open Class for the first time this year, plus the national team in the female 4way category, Illusions.

SportLoto, the new lineup that the NSL News had introduced earlier this year, won the first outdoor meet of the 2011 season in Russia over Gradient Alpha after a jump-off round. However, Sportloto was not eligible for the World Cup 2011 where Sky Panthers Barkli and Gradient Alpha took the 4th and 5th places.

Black Cat competed at the season opener in Russia, as well. However, the team withdrew after two rounds. In fact, Black Cat had already completed the team's busiest part of the 2011 season in May after attending the Dubai Championship 2011 in January, the Valentine's Meet 2011 in February and the Shamrock Showdown 2011 in March. This week's national championship will be Black Cat's 5th meet this year after a long break from competition.

World Cup 2011		Round 1	Round 2	Round 3	Round 4	Round 5	Round 6	Round 7	Round 8	Round 9	Round 10	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	N,F,A,7	Total	Avg
1	Aerodyne Aerokart	22	27	23 (-1)	22	26	25 (-1)	25	24	24	37	255	25.5
2	NMP-PCH Hayabusa	22	27	23	21 (-1)	24	25 (-3)	21 (-4)	23	24	39	249	24.9
3	Paratec-Saar	16 (-2)	23	19	15 (-2)	19	18 (-1)	16 (-2)	19	20	31	196	19.6
4	Sky Panthers Barkli	18	21	19	16 (-2)	19 (-1)	16 (-3)	15 (-4)	19	19	33	195	19.5
5	Gradient Alpha	17	21	17 (-2)	13 (-2)	20	20 (-1)	19	18	17	27	189	18.9
6	EX3MO4	15 (-1)	19	17	17	17	16 (-1)	19	18	16	28	182	18.2
7	Bardagi	15	20	17	15	16 (-1)	14 (-3)	19	15	17	29	177	17.7
8	Dynamite	14	18	16	16	17	17	17	17	17	-	149	16.6

Each of the four top teams brings its strongest lineup into the game this week, as the national championship this year is Russia's qualification event for the World Championship of Formation Skydiving 2012 in Dubai. Only SportLoto will compete with the same lineup that has trained and competed together throughout the whole year.

Gradient Alpha has the lineup that placed 4th in Dubai 2011 with a 21.4 average and battled with SportLoto in April/May in Kolomna (Vladimir Arutyunov, Valentin Ilin, Alexander Tychinsky, Sergey Yalpaev). Andrey Kalugin steps back after competing with Gradient Alpha at the World Cup.

Black Cat will have Alexander Kvochur and Alexander Golovkin in the lineup, together with Evgeni Stachenko and Vasily Korotkov. New Black Cat member Valery Pripilyak has to sit on the bench at this important competition.

Leonid Kazinets, Center Inside of Sky Panthers Barkli, 4way and 8way bronze medalists at the World Championship of Formation Skydiving 2010, has not recovered yet from his neck troubles at the World Cup in Germany where he sat on the bench in the last two rounds. Alternate Nikolay Vylegzhanin took his slot in Round 9 and Round 10 in Saarlouis and is also in the starting lineup this week.

Illusions returned from Germany with the silver medals in the female 4way category and a 16.7 average. It will be very difficult for Illusions to keep up with the four Russian top contenders in the Open Class. However, there is no serious Russian competition for Illusions in the female category.

It seems to be impossible to select a team that might have significantly better chances than the others. It will most likely be a very tight race between those four teams.

The new videos of the World Cup's Round 7 in the 4way Open Class show how Sky Panthers Barkli lost four more points, which was crucial in the race with Paratec-Saar for the bronze medals. The German team lost two points, as well, but extended the lead over Sky Panthers Barkli to two points. However, both teams now had to accept Gradient Alpha taking over the bronze medal position in Round 7.

The results of Round 7 were also crucial on the very top of the leaderboard. NMP-PCH Hayabusa had just swallowed three point deductions in Round 6 where the Belgian team tried to catch up with Aerodyne Aerokart after falling behind by three points in Round 4 and Round 5.

It got even worse in Round 7 where the judges saw four Belgian infringement situations. The 25 points within working time turned into a 21-pointer on the scoreboard, and the distance had increased to seven points, with only three more rounds to go.

Several judging calls were once again questionable, not only for Hayabusa, who could argue each of the four point deductions. Two of the Hayabusa Zig Zags of Block 21 (13th and 19th scoring formation) were called incomplete even though they were not. It is true that Tail Roy Janssen is late on the grips. However, Andy and David Grauwels in the center wait until the rear piece is complete.

It is not unusual at all for Block 21 (Zig Zag - Marquis) that the center prepares for the move and shapes it up differently while holding on to the grips until the Zig Zag is complete. Hayabusa lost two points despite two complete formations.

A similar situation occurred at the finish of the new Block 13 (Offset - Spinner), not only for Hayabusa's 24th scoring point. Point and Tail usually continue their motion with a head switch and additional rotation after the Spinner has been completed. The judges apparently did not count the first frames of the complete Spinner and interpreted the additional motion somehow negatively, just as they did it with the Zig Zags.

Paratec-Saar was a victim of a similar interpretation, as well. The German team had a complete and correct Spinner at the end of the first page. However, the first few frames did not convince the judges to push the scoring button. The German Point Max Thiele makes a move with one hand that could be seen as a grip on the center.

It still doesn't matter what kind of grip connections a team creates once it has shown the correct and complete formation. The scoring button has to be pushed as soon as a scoring formation can be seen. Of course, the "clearly presented" definition always allows any interpretation that fits to the judging call. However, the 6th scoring point of the German team was not an "incorrect formation", as it was stated on the scoresheet, at least not for the few frames that showed the Spinner. The same counts for the Hayabusa Zig Zags.

The Sky Panthers lost a few questionable points, as well. The team got out of synch with keys and breaks, and a few frames of complete and correct formations did not convince the judges enough to count them as scoring formations. Once again, a few frames for a formation or a separation are often good enough for the teams with the highest pace, such as Aerokart Aerodyne and NMP-PCH Hayabusa. By the way: the French team probably delivered the best jump of the meet in Round 7...