... that the story of round nine was very similar to round eight?
posted Jul 21st, 2004 -
The NSL News has fallen one day behind the NSL-TV. Round nine of the IPC Anton Malevsky Memorial World Cup 2004 video review was already available on NSL-TV yesterday. It will still be featured for the rest of Wednesday, July 21. Round ten will follow tomorrow.
Sequence of round nine: 8-1-4
The situation of round nine was almost a copy of round eight. The sequence seemed to favor the French world champions, as the team's Block 8 (Canadian T - Canadian T) has always been the fastest in the 4-way business. DeLand Majik had always sheered the pieces in the past, including this year's Block 8 at the FSL Shamrock Showdown. After evaluating and comparing the available techniques carefully, Majik finally decided to change the technique for Block 8 in the middle of the 2004 season. The Malevsky Cup 2004 would be the first serious test for the new Majik technique, which is now identical with the French technique.
Block 8 (Canadian T - Canadian T)
The outcome of round nine was also almost identical with the freeze frame situation at the end of round eight. The one-point difference between the two best teams in the world in round nine was once again decided by the Omniskore freeze frame picture, although Majik added a few frames to the photo finish compared to round eight. The two images of the freeze frame screen show how close it was. The images of the two Monopods with complete three-way pieces and a single flyer are almost identical. There is a sigificant difference though.
France Maubeuge at freeze frame time
The freeze frame image of France Maubeuge finishes the 35.0 seconds of working time one or two frames before the completion of the second Monopod of Block 4. The 18th point was obviously not very far away. Majik's three-way piece is still complete although center outside Joey Jones is already off the grips after making the catch for the 18th point in the front. The three-way can only release the piece grips when they see the center outside getting off his grips. The center outside has the key for the break of the Monopod and is naturally a little bit ahead. The freeze frame image with the complete grips in the piece shows how close the difference between almost completing the second Monopod (France) and breaking the same formation (Majik) can be at a very high speed.
DeLand Majik at freeze frame time
DeLand Majik gained even more momentum, even though it was so close. The reason was the same as in round eight. The US team won a round that they had not really expected to win. The two rounds where France seemed to have a technical advantage went to the DeLand team, which also reduced the difference between the leader and the second place to one single point. It was now very difficult to predict which team would have the better engineering for round ten. Both teams used completely different ways how to get through the next round. This will be the story for tomorrow's round ten.
Sinapsi PD continued to gain back confidence and credit and stole two more points against the Russian Sky Panthers in round nine. The rollercoaster race for the fifth place continued, as well. Extreme.RU was five points ahead of the other three contending teams and the only team of this four-some that had not seen a major meltdown yet. Round nine brought the bad news to Extreme.RU with the team's lowest score of nine points. Kolumna Quick Blue, Germany EADS and the DaneZ were all back in business after this round. These four teams were now within three point from each other going into round ten.
