posted Sep 5th, 2006 - The NSL News has covered the World Meet 2006 in length. However, there are still many stories that have not made it to the front page yet. One of these stories is overdue and picks up a topic that the NSL News has already touched lightly several times in the past.

The career story of DeLand Fire member Natasha Montgomery is available at her NSL Profile and was posted after winning the USPA Nationals 2005. It was the first time that a female competitor had won the Open Class competition in the USA. The career story also mentioned that there are realistic chances for her to become the first female world champion in IPC's Open Class.

DeLand Fire's path from the USPA Nationals 2005 to the gold medals at the World Meet 2006 has also been covered by the NSL News with several updates, and the Airkix story on August 22 mentioned that "Natasha Montgomery is the first female 4-way Open Class world champion in the history of Formation Skydiving competition".

She is not the first IPC world champion in history. Eliana Rodriguez won the first gold medal with Arizona Airspeed in 8-way at the World Meet 2004 in Croatia, and this story is also a part of Eliana's NSL Profile. However, Natasha Montgomery is the first 4-way competitor who made it to the very top of the world.

Stories of the best female 4-way competitors in the history of Formation Skydiving competition have made the NSL News several times. The last summary was posted on September 19, 2005 (see Archives > 2005 > News). Skydiving competition offers the unique situation that competitors of both genders can compete directly with each other.

Several female 4-way competitors have come very close to the highest reward in Formation Skydiving competition in the past, including Dawn English, Lise Aune and Arianna De Benedetti. It was only a matter of time when a world champion line-up would eventually include a female competitor.

The NSL News invited Natasha Montgomery for a live interview, which took place last week in DeLand. She brought the 4-way trophy, the Excalibur sword, to the NSL office and answered many questions. The NSL News was interested in DeLand Fire's path from the USPA Nationals 2005 to the World Meet 2006 and her memories of the competition in Germany.

The interview also offers insights of her life as a traveling competitor with a home base in DeLand. She also offers a brief comment on the female 4-way event and pays a lot of respect to the Perris Airkix achievements. Most importantly, she admits to be a passionate 4-way competitor: "I am not done yet, there is a lot of 4-way competition still to come."

The video of the interview can be viewed by clicking here.