posted Sep 23rd, 2004 - The teams are still on a weather hold at 2:00 p.m. in Croatia. The NSL News used the opportunity for an interview with Synchronicity's point, Sally Hathaway, who has been a member of the female US 4-way teams since 2001. Synchronicity is the leader of the competition after nine rounds.

NSL News: Sally, you are very close to your second gold medal. Can anybody still catch Synchronicity?

Sally Hathaway: Sure, the French girls. They are only three points behind. They are skydiving very well.

NSL News: The US team looks strong and confident. Is it realistically possible for them to catch up, or are you just being cautious?

Sally Hathaway: Anything is possible. We feel confident with the last round. I think it will be a good round for us, and we are now really looking forweard to it since we had so much time on the ground.

NSL News: Did you expect the French team to be serious competition?

Sally Hathaway: Yes, definitely. I dont think anybody of us really knew where they were since we saw only the scores at their nationals. But we knew that they had trained a lot and that they have the same line-up as last year.

NSL News: How do you see the competition for the third place between Russia and Italy?

Sally Hathaway: It will be exciting. Italy just posted the best score of round nine, and this is a faster round. It could be anybody's game. I hope they practised round eleven, we might have a jump-off. And that might be true for the Open Class teams as well. It would make for an exciting finish of the competition.

NSL News: You already won the gold medal in 2001 in Spain. Who was the competition then?

Sally Hathaway: It was us, the UK, Norway and Sweden. Sweden was leading for most of the competition, and we were at least five points down by round five and played a very slow catch-up. We ended up with an exciting three-point lead after round ten going into it one point after round nine. Round ten of the 2001 world meet is probably my most memorable skydive ever. I still remember how it felt standing on the tail gate getting ready for the exit. The exit was a Satellite with a couple of random formations and Block 17. We did a lot of tunnel training that year and knew we were the faster random flying team, which gave us a lot of confidence going into that round.

NSL News: Does it feel better to be the leader before round ten here?

Sally Hathaway: Yes, it does. I have never been at a competition as the leader, we always came from behind. So it feels really nice. We have been in the lead since round one at this competition, but it has still been a very close race.

NSL News: Norway and the UK went on from 2001 to 2003 and took the first two places at the Mondial 2003, while the US team just managed to save the bronze medals. What happened between 2001 and 2003?

Sally Hathaway: UK picked up an original team member and had almost exactly the same line-up. Norway had the same line-up, I think. We had a brand new team. This year, we are exactly the same team, and we are much stronger in the second year.

NSL News: Synchronicity looked already strong in the training last year, and it did not show at the world meet in Gap. What made you so much stronger this year?

Sally Hathaway: We had a horrible meet in Gap. We made some changes this year, including coaches and training sites. We are also a lot more confident this year.

NSL News: How did you gain the confidence?

Sally Hathaway: We are flying a lot stronger and cleaner this year, and the judges like that, too. We had all clean score sheets except the center point bust on Block 1 in round seven. We made very sure to be clean on Block 12, especially because of the controversy the evening before.

NSL News: Round ten is coming up, hopefully soon. What is Synchronicy's plan for the last round?

Sally Hathaway: Our plan is to go out and skydive clean, strong and efficiently and post the highest score.

NSL News: Good luck, and thank you for the interview.