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The IPC World Cup is a so-called "1st Category Event", which means that it has the same relevance on the IPC agenda as the IPC World Championship. The World Cup takes place every other year and allows a total of four teams per nation to compete for the IPC medals.
The different rules for the World Cup participation are the reason that there can actually be more and tighter competition at a World Cup compared to a World Championship. Next week's event is another example for this situation. The USA had six different top contenders in 4-way this year. Only one team, DeLand Fire, qualified as the US national team for next year's IPC World Championship in Germany.
The same rules allow Russia to send the three best teams to Arizona. Black Cat, formerly known as the Sky Panthers, Extreme.RU and Skylight-Barkli have already posted world class scores this year, while only one Russian team will travel to Germany next year.
The field of registered 4-way teams in the Open Class indicates that the three US and the three Russian teams will compete for the World Cup medals. The table below shows the scores these teams have posted at previous events of the 2005 season.
Team | SSL February | FSL March | SSL April | MESL May | MESL June | Malevsky July | MESL July | Russia August | Germany August | NSL August | USPA 2005 | Best 10-round |
USA DeLand Fire | - | 20.7 (10) | - | - | - | 21.6 (10) | - | - | 21.2 (10) | - | 21.0 (10) | 21.6 |
USA Airspeed Odyssey | 19.5 (6) | - | 20.8 (6) | - | - | 20.4 (10) | - | - | - | 20.3 (6) | 20.3 (10) | 20.4 |
USA Fastrax | - | 18.3 (10) | - | 16.3 (6) | 22.8 (6) | 19.9 (10) | 19.0 (6) | - | - | - | 19.1 (10) | 19.9 |
Russia Black Cat | - | - | - | - | - | 19.5 (10) | - | 20.8 (10) | - | - | - | 20.8 |
Russia Extreme.RU | - | - | - | - | - | 19.2 (10) | - | 20.6 (10) | - | - | - | 20.6 |
Russia Skylight-Barkli | - | - | - | - | - | 18.3 (10) | - | 18.5 (10) | - | - | - | 18.5 |
DeLand Fire has not trained much at all since winning the USPA Nationals 2005. In fact, the new US national team completed eight training jumps on one training day this week. Airspeed Odyssey focused mainly on the 4-way event between the Malevsky Cup 2005 and the USPA Nationals, then switched to 8-way mode to get ready for the French 8-way challenge at the World Cup. Only Fastrax has been in full 4-way swing without any interruptions, and team founder John Hart explained in the recent NSL News interview that his team is highly motivated and ready for the event in Eloy next week.
"We will put all our efforts into the 8-way and the female 4-way. Parallel, we also actually work with five 4-way B-teams to get them ready for 2008. The French strategy is to either register teams that can reach for a medal or national B-teams, composed of very young skydivers, to let them get familiar with international meets. At the World Cup 2005 in Eloy, one B-team will be registered as a French 4-way Open team but will finance the meet on its own expenses. Only 8-way and 4-way Female will be national A-teams in 2005 and 2006."
What can be expected of the competition in the area right behind the top teams? The NSL News updated the audience already as of the Norwegian and the Danish situation. The German team FSC Remscheid will most likely join the competition between these two Scandinavian teams after a very progressive 2005 season for the young team. Below are the posted 2005 scores:
Team | FSL March | FSL April | UK May | UK June | Malevsky July | UK July | Germany August | FSL October | BestMeet |
Denmark DaneZ | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - |
Germany FSC Remscheid | 16.2 (10) | - | - | - | - | - | 18.0 (10) | - | 18.0 (10) |
Norway Arcteryx | 16.5 (10) | 20.7 (6) | - | - | 17.1 (10) | - | - | 18.8 (6) | 17.1 (10) |
UK British Army | - | - | - | - | - | 15.4 (6) | - | - | 15.4 (6) |
UK 4-Motion | - | - | 10.3 (6) | - | - | 14.4 (6) | - | - | 14.4 (6) |
UK South Parc | - | - | - | 12.3 (6) | - | 14.2 (6) | - | - | 14.2 (6) |
Three teams from the United Kingdom are also registered for the World Cup. 4-Motion and South Parc will probably use the opportunity to once again challenge the new national team, the British Army 4-way team. All three teams seem to be close enough to make this UK competition interesting enough.
Brazil's CTR Optimum has attended three meets of the new league in Brazil this year (14.2 - 11.2 - 11.5) and came out as the strongest AAA Class team. Lithuania is one of the former Soviet Republics and neighbors Poland on the northeastern end with access to the Baltic Sea. The 4-way team from this country enters an international competition for the first time.