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Did You Know...

... that Pete Allum can officially compete for Italy's Sinapsi PD in 2006?

Former IPC President BJ Worth at an FAI/IPC meeting in 2002
posted Oct 17th, 2005 - It is official now, the Air Sport General Commission (CASI) of the FAI (Fédération Aéronautique Internationale) changed the eligibility rules for international competitors who want to compete for a different nation after representing another country at a previous event and a "banned period".

The NSL News recently resumed this topic since the CASI meeting took place last week, and two world class 4-way competitors have been involved in the issue surrounding the so-called "Pete Allum Case". The rule change might have an impact on the competition for medals at next year's World Championship of Formation Skydiving in Germany.

BJ Worth, former President of the IPC (International Parachuting Commission), who was in Paris and assigned to a possible International Tribunal for the controversial case, informed the skydiving community inofficially with an update on Saturday last week:

Hello "Friends of Fair Play,"

The FAI General Conference and 100th birthday of FAI has just been concluded. Just before the start of this meeting, CASI (consisting of ten FAI national delegates and ten Air Sport Commission Presidents) addressed the appeal by Italy in which CASI was asked to reconsider its earlier decision to interpret the "3-year rule" as a fixed 1095 days, regardless of the competition cycles involved. CASI debated the issue thoroughly, and then reversed its earlier decision, by adopting the following policy / rule:

"After a person has represented a country in a First Category event, that person must not represent another country in a First Category event during the entire two calendar years (1 January to 31 December) following the calendar year in which the person represented the first country."

This afternoon, a member of CASI told me that this decision was probably not passed on to the FAI Delegate of Italy during the General Conference, due to all the other issues that were addressed. However, FAI HQ will soon send news of this decision to the NAC of Italy. Italy's NAC leadership will be asked if this new ruling satisfies the concern it raised with regard to CASI's support of the IPC's original interpretation of this ruling. This official process is likely to take a couple weeks. However, this ruling is official - pending an unlikely appeal by the NAC of Italy. This information may be distributed to any and all interested parties.

Safe skies,

bj

BJ's announcement was confirmed today by FAI Secretary General Max Bishop in a message directly to the NSL News. He mentioned that it will still take some time until the exact language will be posted. However, the decision has been made, and the new eligibility rule comes out well defined and with no room for misunderstandings:

The new wording of the Sporting Code in this connection is still being fine-tuned by the lawyers. However, the principle that has been adopted by CASI is essentially that, after representing one country, two whole calendar years (1st January to 31 December) must elapse before a competitor can represent another. So if a person represents Utopia in 2005 s/he cannot represent Shangrila until 2008. The precise dates of the contests within those years are immaterial.

With best regards,

Max Bishop
Secretary General

Sinapsi PD with Pete Allum
The new rule counts for all air sports under the FAI umbrella, and it will have its impact on Formation Skydiving competition, as well. The NSL News has explained in several previous articles that former British national competitor Pete Allum joined the Italian national team Sinapsi PD to compete at next year's world meet.

There is no obstacle left for Sinapsi PD with Pete Allum. The Italian federation already confirmed that Pete Allum will have its full support as a member of the national team. He competed for the United Kingdom at the Mondial 2003 in September 2003, did not attend any FAI/IPC sanctioned 1st Category events (IPC World Cup or IPC World Championship) in 2004 or 2005, and he will now be eligible to compete for Italy after January 1, 2006.

Thomas Hughes with DeLand Fire at the FSL Shamrock Showdown 2005
Sinapsi PD had already canceled earlier plans to possibly attend the World Cup 2005 in Eloy next week when it became clear that Pete Allum would not have eligibility status early enough. However, the Italian team has scheduled a training camp for November 2005 in DeLand and will probably attend the NSL Championship at SkyQuest 2005 as a guest team. This would allow the world class team and potential medal contender in 2006 to still check the current status of the team progression compared to the other international top teams at this point in time.

The new eligibility rules do not only have an impact on Sinapsi PD and Pete Allum. The last NSL News story of 2004 (December 31, see NSL Archives 2004) explained that Thomas Hughes is actually in exactly the same situation. The NSL News will resume the evaluation of Thomas Hughes' eligibility status and possible implications very soon.

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