posted Apr 20th, 2006 - The next round of NSL-TV goes back to the April meet of the Florida Skydiving League in Lake Wales. The much easier sequence (2-C-L-N) gave the teams the opportunity to make up for the slow meet opener.

The DeLand Brits, Teiwaz Lake Wales and Punky Guppy all finished this round with 16 points in working time. The UK national 4-way team of 2006 was the fastest team of this 3-way but lost one point due to an incomplete formation after an early break. The British Army team will be judged by FAI officials this year in Germany and appreciated judging calls the same way as to be expected at the World Meet.

NSL-TV features the Bad Boys in this second round of the meet, and the team from the Czech Republic fell victim to judging calls, as well. The six points in working time turned into a 4-pointer on the scoreboard. The Bad Boys took it easy since they were in Florida to train and to learn as much as possible.

The Bad Boys were already the third team from the Czech Republic visiting Florida for training camps this year. The Zero Team competed at the FSL Shamrock Showdown 2006 in March, and the Bad Boys attended the FSL April meet at the Florida Skydiving Center in Lake Wales. Team SkyService is currently training at Skydive DeLand.

The Bad Boys line-up includes Jan Klapka in the Center Inside position who is the founder of the NSL/ESL affiliation in the Czech Republic. The owner of the Parashop, a parachute dealership and skydiving shop in the Czech Republic, is a passionate 4-way competitor and decided to join the league network in Europe at the beginning of the 2005 season. He wanted to offer his fellow skydivers more competition and has the goal to increase the performance level of the teams in his country.

He found the right person when he was looking for a coach to work with. Robert Chromy, who is a current Teiwaz Lake Wales member and a popular full-time coach in DeLand, is a native Czechian and speaks the language fluently. He also fit to the team philosophy, and it did not take too long until Chromy even ended up as a member of the strongest line-up, Team SkyService.

All three teams that visited Florida this year already competed last year in Jan Klapka's league, and the meet dates for the 2006 season are already set. Jan Klapka's wife, Jirina Klapková, represented team Baby Blue last year and traveled with her husband to the spring camp in DeLand.

Jan Klapka met with NSL President Kurt Gaebel at the competition in Lake Wales and then again in DeLand to discuss the future of the league network. He reported great success and progress of the league in the Czech Republic:

"We have a lot of fun, which is the main purpose of the whole project anyway, and the scoring level has gone up significantly ever since the inception of the league. We wanted to begin catching up with the rest of the skydiving world in knowledge and skills, and it is happening."

The ESL league of the Czech Republic has its first of three competitions scheduled for May 27. Jan Klapka also plans to participate once again at the ESL Championship 2006 at the beginning of September in Spa, Belgium:

"We attended the competition last year, and it was a great event. The participation was very good, and the meet management was even better than we expected. We look forward to the trip again this year."

The NSL News will follow up with scores and updates from the Czech Republic, as well as from the other European leagues throughout the regular 2006 season. The ESL Championship 2006 will surely be covered, as well. Stay tuned, the next round of the Southwest Skydiving League April meet will be uploaded soon.