posted May 23rd, 2006 - The meet story of the Florida Skydiving League competition last weekend at Skydive City in Zephyrhills comes along with the first new meet videos on NSL-TV.

Three FSL teams showed up for the May meet, which indicates the start of the hot and humid summer season in Florida. However, the teams on site were much aware of the fact that a total of ten different competitions were taking place at the same time in the USA and in Europe.

Fortunately, the Florida Skydiving League also found support by a new local Formation Skydiving event judge. USPA's Regional Director and national judge, Richard Schachner, had decided earlier this year to discontinue with his judging services for the Florida Skydiving League.

Kirk Knight had already expressed his interest in judging FSL meets before he was finally able to visit the meet in Zephyrhills last weekend. He is also a national USPA judge and had his last assignment at USPA's Collegiate Championships 2005 in Lake Wales.

Kirk Knight was the commander of the Golden Knights competition team between 1989 and 1991 and traveled with the team to the world meet in Spain 1989. He is still very active and used the opportunity of a slow meet pace to make several 4-way skydives while the teams were busy with their competition jumps.

Skydive City's home team in the A Class competed with Paul Bartkus (Tail), Leslieann McCormack (Inside Center), James Saine (Outside Center) and Laura Song (Point) this time. The team continued to show the improvements, which were already visible between the March and April meet.

The progression between March and May (6.3 - 6.7 - 8.8) was even more impressive, and Skydive City's A Class team ended up in the top spot of the whole A Class leaderboard of last weekend's events. The total of 13 A Class teams included teams from the Southwest Skydiving League, Austria and Germany.

Skydive City's sharp progression makes it very difficult for ZT Mal4mations from Skydive Miami in Homestead to keep up or catch up. Gary Hansen (Center Inside), Ana Sang (Point) and Lance Smith (Center Outside) brought Carlos Cribas in the Tail slot to the meet in Zephyrhills. It was his first FSL competition filling in for Dutch Vandervelt. Alex Batista filmed the team once again.

However, ZT Mal4mations had a great start into the competition and mastered the opening sequence with the team's most unpopular Block 8 (Canadian T - Canadian T) better than ever before at a meet. Exit problems followed in the next rounds and did not allow the Miami team to get past their previous meet results.

Teiwaz Lake Wales competed with the same line-up that attended the FSL April meet. Scott Graham, a tunnel instructor at SkyVenture Orlando, filmed the team in Zephyrhills. Kris Byrne (Point), Bob Byrne (Center Outside), Kurt Gaebel (Center Inside), Robert Chromy (Tail) and Scott Graham finished with a 14.3 average last weekend.

The Teiwaz members were following the meet action in Germany on-line and had a great competition going with X-Ray Remscheid and the German Army team (Bundeswehr). However, the even more exciting news came when Austria provided the scores of last weekend's event on Monday.

The Austrian team Monkey Circus and Teiwaz Lake Wales had a live competition together already at the FSL Shamrock Showdown 2006 in March. Monkey Circus finished the team's spring camp with the competition in DeLand and beat Teiwaz by four points after ten rounds.

The results of last weekend's competition had both teams finish even closer to each other. Monkey Circus posted a 14.2 average after six rounds, and Teiwaz Lake Wales won by one single point with a 14.3 average. Both teams already checked the meet calendar and found out that there is a chance for a tie-breaker. The NSL Calendar of Events shows that both Austria and the Florida Skydiving League have scheduled meets for August 19.

The synchronized competition draws and meet calendars between the NSL leagues and the network in Europe offers many opportunities of that kind. Mini meets between a few teams that know each other take place at different locations all the time. Smaller leagues with a lower turnout can compare their scores directly with teams from all over the world.

The small meet at Skydive City produced last weekend's winner in the A Class, and Teiwaz Lake Wales finished in 3rd place out of the 24 teams in the AAA Class. More meet stories of the past weekend will follow, while the preparations for the upcoming weekend are already in full swing. The coming events include a high-profile competition in Denmark with the DaneZ and also the Belgian Nationals 2006 with Spa Hayabusa and NMPV.