posted Jul 29th, 2004 - Teams and organizers in Finland, the most eastern part of Scandinavia, have been interested in joining the NSL system and the European Skydiving League with their own league for years. The weather in Finland allows only for a very short summer season. Many Scandinavian skydivers and teams travel to sunnier and warmer locations during the off-season.

Even though it is logistically and financially very challenging for the Scandinavian teams to train hard, almost each country has produced top 4-way teams in the past. Finland had its share in 1993 when the 4-way team "Mad Way" placed fourth at the World Championship of Formation Skydiving at Skydive Arizona in Eloy with a 14.9 average.

Previous efforts to launch a consistent 4-way competition league have not been very successful, mostly due to these logistical difficulties. The 2004 season in Finland has seen teams participating in two events so far. The last competition was held on July 17 - 18 and was the national championship at the same time.

The teams in Finland used the same competition draw as the NSL and the European Skydiving League that weekend and were also listed within the results overview of the NSL SkyVenture Competition (check NSL News July 24). The NSL News mentioned already by then that there would be a follow-up story on the event in Finland. The available information is now good enough to post the story.

The Finish FAI judge, Jukka Olkkonen, who is heading the 2004 league efforts and who was also on the judging panel of the IPC Anton Malevsky Memorial World Cup 2004, provided the scores and additional information from Finland. He explained that team "Zooey" is the first all-female team in history that won the national chamionship of Finland.

The NSL News would take chances and go even a step further. It is mosty likely the first time in the history of Formation Skydiving that an all-female team won an open national championship at all. The valued NSL audience is invited to help the NSL News searching for an earlier time that a national champion team of the open class consisted of only women.

Zooey consists of team captain Satu Munnukka, Mia Broman, Taina Rajala, Suvi Peltonen and Ahti Kangas on video. The new Finish champion surely did not win the 2004 title due to lack of competition. In fact, the Finish champion of the last five years, FC Moukku, with team captain Tony Nyholm, Mika Rautiainen, Jukka Tanninen, Riku Peltola and Jaakko Laukkanen on video, was on site and ready to defend the title one more time.

FC Moukku knew that it would not be a walk in the park. However, FC Moukku expected the challenge probably more from another team. Team PV, the Finish Army team, was the best trained team this year with hours of wind tunnel time and many more training days and jumps compared to FC Moukku and Zooey. Zooey's team captain Satu Munnukka reported that Zooey made 19 training jumps before the championship and that FC Moukku had logged 20 jumps.

The race for the Finish 2004 title was as close between FC Moukku and Zooey as the number of both teams' training jumps were. Zooey surprised both all-male contenders already in round one and took the position of a very serious challenger with a one-point lead over FC Moukku and the Army team PV. The competition continued as a three-team race throughout the first four rounds with FC Moukku back in the lead (42 - 40 - 40).

Round five was probably the turning point of the competition. Zooey posted the highest score of 15 points for this round and caught up with FC Moukku, while the Army team fell far behind. It was a horse race from here on with the lead going back and forth between FC Moukku and Zooey. The all-female team finished one point ahead of FC Moukku with a 10.9 average after eight rounds and succeeded in one of the most exciting competitions in Finish history.

Team captain Satu Munnukka commented the outcome of the meet: "I think our advantage was the slow draw, lots of blocks. We are more precise with the blocks, while our random work is not that fast compared to Moukku´s. The judges also gave us credit for being so easy to judge, as our separations were shown and they were clear."

The 2004 season was the third year for Zooey. It will also be the last year. Zooey's 2004 line-up was identical with the one of the Mondial 2003 in Gap, France, where the same team competed in the Woman's Class. Munnukka mentioned that the team will not attend the World Meet in Croatia this year: "This is our third year together and unfortunately it will be the last one. We are not going to go Croatia, because we do not have money to do it." The Finish teams do not receive much financial support from their association. The "Mad Way" success of 1993 was based on sponsorship efforts.

The end of team Zooey's career is still a happy end with a new female record of 15 points and an entry in the history book of Formation Skydiving. The outcome of this national championship is also a clear statement that all-female teams are very much capable of beating any other teams, and it might re-ignite the discussion of the necessity of a separate woman's class.