posted Aug 4th, 2006 - The NSL News met Solly Williams earlier today when the NSL-TV was on the first sight-seeing tour at the competition site, and an appointment for an interview was made. The video of this new NSL-TV interview can now be viewed by clicking here.

Solly Williams is one of the five reigning 4-way world champions of DeLand Majik. The team will not try to defend the gold medals, only DeLand Fire member Gary Smith has the chance to bring Excalibur, the world meet trophy, back to DeLand.

However, the reigning world champion has to bring or send the sword to the competition site of the next world meet. The NSL News reported earlier that DeLand Majik members Doug Park and Solly Williams celebrated the trophy's last minutes in DeLand on Saturday last week.

Solly Williams now mentioned that he brought Excalibur to Gera, and he has it under his bed in the hotel room until it will be needed for the upcoming award ceremony. The interview took place once again in front of the scoreboard, and Solly Williams took the time to comment the situation in each event.

The rankings were not the same any longer, compared to the time of the previous interview with Dan BC. The German organizers now set the team names according to the jump order for the first round of the competition. The jump order considers the final standings of the previous world meet, which took place in Croatia 2004.

The best teams are always the last ones in the rotation, which means that the US team, DeLand Fire this time, will be the last team to jump in the first round of this competition. This also places the best teams currently at the very bottom of the scoreboard. New national teams with no ranking at the last world meet were randomly drawn into the jump order after the set teams.

Solly Williams is in Germany not only to deliver Excalibur. He is also coaching the 4-way teams from Australia, Denmark and Germany. It will be a busy meet for him. Solly Williams believes that the teams with the most training have the best chances to win the events. The details of his evaluation are coming with the latest NSL-TV interview, click here.

Familiar names in the line-ups

The latest updates on the team pages included pictures of the Swiss 4-way team in the female category and of the British 8-way team. Both teams include competitors who were well known before joining these teams.

Helena Kuebler stepped in when the Swiss team needed an alternate this year. "Nina" competed with the world class team from Switzerland, "Endeavour", and attended her last world meet at the Mondial 2003 in France. Endeavour finished with an 18.7 average in 6th place three years ago.

Dan BC was her coach when she competed with Endeavour. Her own experience will now surely help the Swiss team at the world meet in Germany. A former Endeavour teammate is also on site in Gera. Mike Vetter competed together with Nina Kuebler at the World Meet in Spain 2001. Mike Vetter and Dan BC worked together this year to shape up the German 8-way team for the battle with the Italian 8-way team.

The line-up of the British 8-way team includes the owner of Sun Path Products, Derek Thomas. "Connextion" has trained quite a lot for the world meet this year, and Derek Thomas has been a committed team player. His skydiving agenda used to include more the larger formation events, while he randomly joined a few teams here and there. The British 8-way team training this year was probably Derek Thomas' strongest team commitment in his long skydiving career.