posted Sep 13th, 2003 - No, Russia did not have a bad jump. Once again, they engineered the sequence their own way, and it might have been a little bit slower. However, it was not a penalty, not a brainlock, no slow moves. It was simply the fact that they had the lead and two very hungry teams behind them. Airspeed veteran Jack Jefferies explains in an interview with the NSL News the phenomen of this competition situation. Read the interview at the NSL Mondial 2003 homepage.There is no doubt that Airspeed was skydiving with everything they had left. Something had to happen in this round that would show that there is still a competition for the gold medal. It worked. The three points that the U.S. team won only in this round cut the Russian lead to one single point, gives Airspeed a lot of confidence and the competition the ultimate excitement in the last round. Can it be any better? How will the Russian team deal with this? The Airspeed veterans will answer this question easily. Russia has been there, they have seen it all, they will not bend. It will be a last round to the bones. It will be a repetition of the last round in 2001. It will be nerve-wrecking for the audience.

The similarity between the French 8-way situation and the U.S. Women's 4-way situation is quite amazing. Both teams showed their real potential in round nine after burying their ambitions for the gold medal already earlier. It was more a demonstration jump to prove to the audience and to themselves that they can do much better than the scoreboard had shown. France tied Airspeed's highscore of 24 points with a beautiful and clean competition jump. Round one and round nine of the French 8-way team were surely on gold medal level. But there were seven other rounds in between. Respect and applause for a great show in this round.