posted Jul 30th, 2006 - The Swedish battle for the tickets to Germany is over, Team 42 is the winner and will represent Sweden in the 4-way competition of the upcoming FAI World Championship of Formation Skydiving 2006.

The NSL News has covered the race between Team 42 and Team Spaï with several stories. The last update was posted on July 4 and mentioned that the final showdown was scheduled for the Swedish Nationals 2006 last week.

The Swedish federation decided to wait to the last minute before making the decision which team will represent the Scandinavian country at the World Meet since both teams have been so close at the previous meets. In fact, Team 42 and Team Spaï were tied after seven rounds at the previous competition on July 1.

Last week's national championships finally brought a clear tie-breaker and allowed the Swedish federation to take a deep breath and feel better after a tough qualification process. Finally, one of the two teams was able to win a meet clearly, which made it easier to sanction the national team.

Team 42, with Mattias Pålsson, Joar Stenkvist, Jens Thögersen, Andreas Wittbom, Staffan Linde on camera and alternate/coach Mattias Nord won the Swedish Nationals 2006 last week by six points with a 15.1 average after ten rounds. It was the highest meet average for Team 42 this year (13.3 - 14.7 - 15.1) for another relatively slow competition draw in Sweden.

Team 42 improved the scoring average meet by meet and took the control at the right time. Team Spaï, with Tobias Alsiö (Center Outside), Mikael Kaulanen (Point), Ulf Liljenbäck (Center Inside), Mats Svensson (Tail) and Daniel Åström (Camera) attended one more meet (13.3 - 13.4 - 14.7 - 14.5) and was not able to keep up any longer on the final stretch.

Team 42 dominated the first half of the meet, took a 2-point lead in round two and increased the difference to six points after five rounds. It just seemed to become an easy ride for the new national team when Team Spaï finally showed why it had been such an incredible race in the previous two events.

Team Spaï recovered and fought back when the second half od the meet began. Team 42's 6-point lead shrunk to a 3-point advantage after rounds six and seven. Everything was open again, and Team Spaï seemed to have enough momentum going to catch up in the remaining three rounds.

However, round eight stopped Team Spaï for good. The 4-point loss in this one round was too much for a chance to recover. Team 42 continued with a very consistent performance and finished the meet with the best average of the 2006 season, while Team Spaï was slightly below the meet average of the July 1 event.

Team Spaï was able to complete the meet on a high note, even though it was obvious after nine rounds that there was no realistic chance any longer to win. The 17-pointer in round ten was the 3rd highscore for Team Spaï and a very respectful conclusion of the 2006 season.

Sweet 4 in 3rd place copied the 2006 progression of Team 42 with increased meet averages (11.0 - 11.3 - 12.0 - 12.8) at each competition, except that Sweet 4's progression included even all four meets in Sweden this year. Touch (8.8 - 10.9) and Aeris (8.3 - 10.2) both improved the meet averages, as well, after attending the teams' second events of the year.

The Tigers from Finland visited Sweden for the second time this year after also competing in Denmark a week ago. A very slow start put the Tigers far behind Sweet 4. The team from Finland kept up with the Swedish bronze medal winner for the remaining eight rounds, but the meet average was slightly below the Tigers' results in Denmark.

Fabulous 4 was the only Swedish A Class team that attended more than one meet in 2006 (4.5 - 5.5 - 7.2) and also impressed with a consistent progression of the meet average.

The 2006 season has officially come to an end for the Swedish teams, unless Sweden will send a delegation to the ESL Championship 2006 in September. Of course, the new national team, Team 42, has the main event still to come. There is one week left for the Swedish team to get ready for the World Meet 2006 in Germany.