posted Jul 6th, 2004 - Thursday was the last day of the competition in both events, 4-way Formation Skydiving and Accuracy. The competition was not only extremely exciting in the 4-way event. Competitors of both disciplines learned during the three days of competition that a very tight race was going on in the male individual category of the Accuracy competition. There were five Accuracy jumpers tied in first place with a total of zero centimeters after six rounds, a unique world class situation.

The field of flawless Accuracy jumpers thinned out round by round during the knock-out elimination rounds of the semifinals and finals. Three jumpers still had a total of zero after seven rounds. Finally, it came down to a two-way showdown between the Russian Sergej Vertiprakhov and the German Marco Pflueger. Both world class athletes did not make a mistake through 15 rounds. The world record stood at 12 rounds of zero centimeters before the Malevsky Cup 2004. Pflueger then scored a three in round 16 and left the gold medal and new world record for Vertiprakhov.

The meet management had planned a trip to Moscow for all competitors on Friday and had given everybody enough time to recover after the first party Thursday evening. Take-off time for the three buses to Moscow was at 11:00 a.m. However, several participants still used the two-hour trip to Russia's capitol city to continue with the recovery. The tired and sleeping beauties missed a quite exciting service by the Russian police. The buses with the competitors enjoyed VIP priorities with a police escort that cleared the way to Moscow.

Traffic is thick on the highways around the 10-million city, especially on a weekend. The Malevsky Cup organizers knew this and wanted to make sure that the trip would still run smoothly. The police cars blocked oncoming traffic if necessary, guided the buses onto the opposite lanes if the regular lanes were jammed and made sure that nothing was in the way in both directions. The first-time visitors were quite impressed with this VIP treatment.

The first part of the journey to Moscow ended right in front of the Red Square and the Kreml. Malevsky Cup participants had the choice to visit the Russian government in the Kreml or spend time on the Red Square and the side roads. Several visitors of the Kreml had the opportunity to see the Russian President, Mr. Putin, walking by in greeting distance. The NSL News was not present for a picture. However, the eye witnesses mentioned that Putin was in good spirits. DeLand Majik members decided to relax in a street cafe of the side streets around the Red Square.

Next station of the Moscow trip was a dinner in a restaurant on the Moskva River, which was also sponsoreed and prepared by the Malevsky Cup management. The police escort continued the all-green-light tour in Moscow, as well. While the Malevsky Cup participants were dining inside the first-class restaurant, the police was patiently waiting outside for the next part of the Moscow journey.

The Russian State Circus was on the agenda as the grande finale of the Malevsky Cup's cultural part on Friday. The two-hour performance completed a wonderful day in "the city that never sleeps". Of course, many of the visitors would have liked to stay even longer and get a taste of Moscow's night life. However, the official tour was over now, and the bus caravan with its police escort headed back south, out of Moscow and toward Stupino. Saturday was supposed to be the real day of celebration, and it made sense to save some energy.