posted Jul 19th, 2004 - The NSL-TV review of the IPC Anton Malevsky Memorial World Cup 2004 now continues with round eight. It was Thursday morning in Russia, and France Maubeuge's lead had increased to three points in round seven, the last jump the day before. How were the chances for the challenger from DeLand to catch up and even still win the competition? France had won the first two rounds until Majik caught up with the pace. Both teams then went exactly the same pace in rounds three through five and in round seven.

Had this showdown taken place at the Mondial 2003, viewers would probably think that there is no way for any team to catch up with the French team. Maubeuge's performance in Gap was almost flawless. The situation was different in Stupino. The world champions had made mistakes and lost points in this competition. The sub-terminal Block 13 in round seven was the latest example. Fact after seven rounds was also that both teams went basically the same pace. However, Majik had won round six by three points.

The Majik veterans knew by now that the French team was not impeccable. The three-point deficit after seven rounds had not put Majik in a hopeless position. Actually, Majik members mentioned that they like to come from behind. It can surely be difficult for the leader to find the right strategy how to defend the lead successfully. It surely does not make sense to push the pace and take chances. On the other hand, a lead can easily melt away if the leader slows down too much with a racing challenger in the neck.

The outcome of round eight was more important than the actual scores might show. It was incrediblt to see how close both teams were once again in this round. The Omniskore freeze frame shows almost exactly the same picture for DeLand Majik and France Maubeuge. The US national 4-way team was one single frame ahead. Both images of the freeze frames at 0.0 seconds even still show the score of 23 points. However, Majik's first Stardian of Block 6 is complete, while Maubeuge misses it by a few inches at each of the rear piece's grips. The judges changed the Majik score to 24 points after a second review with the same freeze frame picture.

The DeLand team won back one point, and the lead was down to two points. However, it was not only this one point that gave back the momentum to DeLand Majik. It was more the fact that Majik had stolen a point in a round that was expected to be a strong one for France Maubeuge. Majik's center inside, Doug Park, explained the additional energy created by the results of round eight: "We knew that Maubeuge has the best and fastest Stardians in the world. We did not really see a great chance to win this round, even though we had worked on our own Stardians. Now we know that we can keep up or even beat them in such a round."

It surely was a great start for the DeLand team that day. Maubeuge still had the two-point lead after eight rounds, and the French world champions have been in similar situations before. They know how to handle tough competition and pressure with their own great competition experience. It was still an extremely challenging situation, even for the reigning world champions.

The competition for the bronze medal was pretty much already decided after seven rounds. The Russian Sky Panthers had increased their lead over Sinapsi PD to nine points. The remaining three rounds were only an opportunity for the Italian team to show that they can perform much better than they did throughout most of the meet. Round eight was one of the jumps where Sinapsi PD earned back some respect and credit and won back one point from the Sky Panthers.

The competition for the fifth position was still a similar rollercoaster ride for the four involved teams, Kolumna Quick Blue, Extreme.RU, EADS and the DaneZ. After seven rounds on Wednesday and serious mistakes by the Russian team Quick Blue in round six and the DaneZ in round four, it seemed as if the four-some was reduced to a two-some between Extreme.RU and the German team. However, it was now the German team's turn for a bad round, and EADS lost the team's four-point advantage over Quick Blue and the Danez in round eight. Extreme.RU was now alone in fifth position after eight rounds, five points ahead of the pack.

The review and NSL-TV videos of round nine are on for tomorrow. In the meantime, the scoring table of last weekend's NSL competitions will be updated regularly.