posted Oct 26th, 2006 - The 8-way competition of the USPA Nationals 2006 is almost over, as well. Two teams in the Open Class still have to make their 10th round, as well as the whole field of Intermediate Class teams. The positions in the Open Class competition are set, with Arizona Airspeed, Golden Nuggets and Paraclete XP in the medal positions.

Lock It Up still has a slight chance to push Paraclete XP off the bronze medal slot. It took the Paraclete line-up with several former 8-way world champions longer than expected to climb back up the leaderboard after the 0-pointer in round three. The Mass Defiance/Gravity/Onyx combination is only one point behind Paraclete after nine rounds.

Paraclete has already completed round ten and posted a 12-pointer, which does not seem to be one of the best jumps for the team. However, Paraclete has outscored Lock It Up in each round by at least two points after the 0-pointer. It seems to be unlikely that the pickup team of 4-way competitors could make up the one missing point that would force Paraclete into a jump-off for the bronze medals.

On the other hand, Lock It Up has already posted a 13-pointer and a 14-pointer in earlier rounds. 13 points would be enough for a jump-off, 14 points would win the bronze medals. The line-up has enough pace, it just requires a technically clean jump to get to these results.

The sequence for round ten might even favor the 4-way experts. Block 18 (Side Body Donut - Side Body Donut) includes a very familiar maneuver of the four pieces, and the Block 3 inter requires only individual flying. The Open Facing Diamond could become the biggest challenge. However, it is not over yet, and the last 8-way jumps are scheduled for this morning.

The NSL News received several messages with the question why there is no NSL-TV of the event this time. The answer is quite simple. The NSL News is not live on site, correspondents kindly forward information from Eloy to the NSL News headquarters in DeLand.

USPA and Skydive Arizona's owner Larry Hill decided to cover this year's event without the NSL News' live coverage and the NSL-TV features. Larry Hill bought Omniskore earlier this year from Ted Wagner and hired Tim Wagner to provide the on-line coverage as in the past years.

USPA, Larry Hill and NSL News still discussed the matter at the beginning of the year, and the decision not to use the NSL News features was made by USPA in July: "USPA has an agreement in concept with Larry Hill and Skydive Arizona to provide reporting of the nationals to our membership and, therefore, doesn't need your services."

The USPA Nationals 2006 were still of enough interest for the NSL News and the worldwide on-line audience to give it the best attention possible. The missing pieces are NSL-TV coverage, videos of live action and interviews on competition site, up-to-date photos.

The NSL News used photos that came from the archives, which was not very difficult. Most of the teams had already competed at any of the league events in the country this year and were well known to the NSL News and the audience. However, there were still a few new teams, which could not be shown with photos in the stories.

It used to be a part of the productive cooperation between Omniskore and NSL News in the past that information and photos were exchanged and mutually available. The NSL News used Omniskore photos in agreement and gave photo credit in return. This was a different situation this year since the NSL News was not allowed any longer to use Omniskore material.

The NSL News still believes that any news coverage of a major skydiving competition is helpful for the sport. Headquarters in DeLand and correspondents in Eloy tried the best to provide information and help to make the event in Eloy even more interesting for the audience. Hopefully, NSL-TV and other NSL News features can be provided again in the future, next coming from the major events of the 2007 season.