posted Jan 23rd, 2006 - Round seven of the NSL Championship at SkyQuest 2005 has already been posted for quite a while. It was a fun round for the teams, and it was also a fun sequence to watch. Italy's national team Sinapsi PD had a flawless performance and finished with a 19-pointer, which left the Italians still with a 22.0 average after seven rounds.

Round eight brought Sinapsi PD to the extreme opposite end of 4-way success. The team's 15-pointer in this round included more significant mistakes than in any of the previous rounds, maybe more than in all previous rounds together. Sinapsi PD was actually lucky to get away with the score of 15 points, it could have been worse.

Round eight was once again on the slower side of the 10-round competition with Block 12 (Bundy - Bundy) at the end of the sequence. However, it also included a fast part from the second Bundy to the new beginning of Block 12 (Bundy - Block 16 - Meeker - Bundy).

Sinapsi PD launched a beautiful Compressed Accordeon for Block 16 and went through the first two pages just as if the team would continue on the same performance level as in the previous round seven. However, the third page changed the picture dramatically. Block 16 (Compressed Accordeon - Box) became a major obstacle from here on.

The last part of the second page may have caused the trouble with the third repetition of Block 16. There was already a short interruption of the flow when the front piece made contact with the rear piece after 360 degrees of the 540 turn in Block 12 (Bundy - Bundy).

Fact is that the rear piece lost a grip close to the end of the completion of Block 16 on the third page. The second formation of Block 16, the Box, did not count as a scoring formation any longer. The lost grip and a short hesitation with apparent doubts how to move on could have caused more trouble. The inter from the Box to the Meeker is not as clean and clear as usually required from the top teams. Sinapsi PD was fortunate enough to avoid an additional penalty for this transition.

The next Block 16 on the fourth page was not any better. This time, the pieces did not lose any grips but missed the connection at the end of the rotation. The rear piece added 360 degrees to the rotation to finally make the connection and completion.

The Compressed Accordeon as the 16th point within working time was built at 29.70 seconds. Block 16 was completed shortly after Sinapsi PD ran out of working time, once point was deducted, 15 points were posted on the scoreboard. The official score of 15 points could have been only 14 points, as well. The pace the Italian team was going could have easily brought up the score to 19 points without the mistakes.

This competition jump was done in November 2005, and Sinapsi PD has already completed two training camps ever since. It is very unlikely that similar mistakes will ever be seen again with the same Italian line-up. The team members were all very pleased with the results of the training after SkyQuest 2005.

The Sinapsi PD performance in November 2005 was already quite impressive. However, the team's next live appearance at the FSL Shamrock Showdown 2006 will probably still present a much improved Italian performance on a significantly higher level. The FSL season opener is scheduled for March 18 - 19 at Skydive DeLand.

Sinapsi PD was not the only team that had trouble in round eight. TeiwaZ-Hills missed the completion of one Block 12 (Bundy - Bundy), and the Georgia Skydiving League team Airlock funneled the exit and lost one point due to an incomplete formation.

Airlock was still one point up after round seven in the race for the second place with FSC Wind Damaged in the AA Class competition. The problems in round eight put the team from Georgia two points behind the FSL team after eight rounds. The team members tried hard to re-build the first formation quickly, as the image after the funnel shows.

Unfortunately, the rhythm was interrupted again when the Meeker on the first page was not built simultaneously and did not count as a scoring formation. Airlock moved on with high energy and still ended up with only six points on the board. Three points were lost to FSC Wind Damaged in this jump, and Airlock could not recover from the loss in the remaining two rounds.

This round of NSL-TV can only be found by going back into the Archives 2005. NSL-TV 2005 and the scoreboard of the NSL Championship 2005 both currently offer the links to these jumps. All of the competition jumps, including the earlier rounds, can also be viewed at the NSL page of SkyQuest 2005. Enjoy the show.