posted Apr 18th, 2006 - The first round of the Florida Skydiving League Meet 2 last weekend at the Florida Skydiving Center was already uploaded yesterday, shortly after the last round of the Shamrock Showdown was added to the NSL-TV page.

Competition jumps of four of the seven teams in Lake Wales could already be viewed during the NSL-TV coverage of the Shamrock Showdown and are still available on the event's NSL-TV page: Teiwaz Lake Wales (AAA), FSC Wind Damaged (AA), Skydive City (A) and ZT Mal4mations (A). The other three teams had not competed earlier this year.

The DeLand Brits, the British Army team that will represent the United Kingdom at this year's World Meet in Germany, is not new to the NSL News audience. The story on January 25 provided details of the team's plans and included videos of training jumps.

Another NSL News story on February 28 offered insights of the British Army team with a video of an interview aired by the Armed Forces TV channel, BFBF.

The time of preparations, training videos and preview stories was over when the DeLand Brits decided to travel from DeLand to Lake Wales and put the first scores of the 2006 season on the SkyVenture Scoreboard.

The same British Army team had posted its first scores of the 2005 season in July at a meet of the European Skydiving League. The 15.4 average in July 2005 included a 24-pointer for a fast sequence of Random Formations (K-B-H-A-M).

The British Army team was also one of three UK teams that traveled to Skydive Arizona in October 2005 and competed at the World Cup of Formation Skydiving. The same line-up that attended the meet in Lake Wales last weekend posted a 15.3 average at the World Cup and made clear that the Armty team was still the strongest 4-way team of the United Kingdom. South Park finished with a 12.5 average and 4-Motion with a 12.3 average after eight rounds in Eloy.

However, the international field at the World Cup in October 2005 was strong, and the DeLand Brits' 15.3 average was just enough for the 11th position, including three teams from the USA and Russia each. The UK team took the 7th position out of ten different nations at the World Cup.

This result was similar to the position of the previous UK national team at the World Meet in Croatia 2004. The British 4-way team in Croatia was a part of the 8-way team VNE and finished in 12th place with a 14.3 average.

However, the DeLand Brits have already arrived at the 16.0 scoring average, and the competition draw last weekend in Lake Wales was not on the faster end. The currently featured round one was the slowest round of the whole competition, and the DeLand Brits opened the competition with a solid 13-pointer, which was also the highscore for this round.

Punky Guppy was shortly behind with a 12-pointer. Teiwaz Lake Wales gave up two points when Center Inside and NSL President Kurt Gaebel invented a new Photon for Block 11 and repeated this mistake on each page of the jump. Two of these Photons were within working time, and the reasonable 11-pointer turned into a disappointing 9-pointer on the scoreboard. Teiwaz took it easy and continued heading toward a 14.8 meet average after six rounds.

The A Class sequence for the first round was completely different. None of the three AAA Class blocks (22-11-16) are a part of the A Class dive pool, and two other blocks had to be drawn to replace the AAA Class blocks. Skydive City and ZT Mal4mations had Block 8 (Canadian T - Canadian T) and Block 21 (Zig Zag - Marquis) on their agenda for round one.

Both teams ended up with five points in working time, but the Miami team had to accept a deduction for one Mal4mation after the inter from the second Canadian T to the Zig Zag. Both teams posted very close scores in the technical sequences with blocks, but Skydive City had a huge advantage in the sequences with only random formations and finished 13 points ahead of the Miami team after six rounds.

Stay tuned, the next round of the last Southwest Skydiving League meet is next on NSL-TV.