posted Sep 9th, 2006 - The 8-way drama in Germany seems to have come to a conclusion after nine rounds. EADS Achter won the round by three points, and FSC Remscheid stands with the back to the wall going into round ten. The event page has been updated with more scores and information.

Willy Boeykens provided more information from the ESL Championship 2006, and he also sent some pictures. One of these photos shows the hangar where the participants pack their parachutes and watch the competition jumps on the large screens. There is a part of this photo that caught the NSL News attention, and the audience is invited to look for a very special object in the hangar. The NSL News will follow up on this occurance later and with feedback from the audience.

Other event photos also show the judging area where two panels work independantly. One 3-judge panel covers the AA Class and A Class competition, while the other panel is responsible for the AAA Class and the Rookie Class. Willy Boeykens uses the newly developed DDS judging and scoring system from Finland.

The judges at the ESL Championship 2006 are comming from Belgium, Netherlands, Finland, Great Britain, Czech Republic and France. This competition is the first serious test for the new judging and scoring system. The NSL News will follow up with more specific information later.

The ESL Championship 2006 is the first event where the European Skydiving League has competition in all four competition classes. ESL and NSL completed the synchronization of their competition classes with the beginning of the 2006 season, and the complete system has been very successful in Europe.

In fact, each class is well represented at the championship event with the A Class teams leading the field as of participation. The AA Class situation was a little bit different and also trickier. It was the last class that was added this year to complete the system in Europe.

The new AA Class did not make it into each participating league right away. The delegations from countries where the AA Class was not applied this year had to be flexible and sign up teams from other classes to be competitive in the AA Class. This created an interesting tactical challenge for the leaders of the delegations.

The result was that two Belgian teams, which had competed in the AAA Class earlier this year, now represent their country's delegation in the AA Class. Spa's Good and Bad Donuts have become important factors in the race for the ESL Spirit since both teams have scored significantly higher compared to their previous AAA Class competitions this year.

The Dutch delegation went the other way and registered NRG for the AA Class. The Dutch team had competed in the A Class earlier this year. It could be expected that the Belgium teams would score higher since the difficulty of the competition classes obviously decreases from top to bottom.

The Dutch team NRG was facing eight additional blocks and a longer sequence, and the team did very well considering this challenge. In fact, NRG currently stands at almost exactly the same meet average compared to its A Class results in August this year.

The other Dutch team in the AA Class competition this weekend, the Daltons, followed the Belgian tactic and signed up for the lower competition class. The Daltons competed in the AAA Class in June, and the team is now scoring higher, as well. The three AA Class teams from Great Britain, Damn Zebra, Vertically Challenged and Polaris, have competed in the same competition class before and deliver on the adequate scoring level.

All teams in the other competition classes (AAA, A, Rookie) compete in the same categories that they have been familiar with. The scores of the AA Class competition might have become a key factor in the race for the ESL Spirit.