posted Mar 8th, 2007 - It was on 26 May 2004 when the NSL News mentioned Natasha Montgomery for the first time (Archives > 2004 > News). She had competed with Arizona Blade at the May meet of the Southwest Skydiving League, and the story simply provided the names of the team members (Thomas Hughes, Mark Kirkby, Natasha Montgomery and Beat Steffen).

The story of the June meet did not go any deeper, as well. Arizona Blade received more attention when Robert Healy joined the line-up, and the story on 3 August 2004 introduced the new line-up, mostly focused on the new Blade member.

Natasha Montgomery was recognized as an individual top competitor for the first time when the NSL News covered the 4-way Women's project at the "International Women's Team Week" in November 2004. Dan BC had invited the best four female competitors in the world to join forces in Perris for one week.

Natasha Montgomery was not invited to this event. Lise Aune (DeLand Norgies), Arianna de Benedetti (Snapsi PD), Eliana Rodriguez (Airspeed) and Nina Kuebler (Switzerland Endeavour) jumped together for one week, while the story on 13 October 2004 named Elena Tchistova (Russian 8-way team) and Natasha Montgomery as "other female world class competitors".

The NSL News took on Arizona Blade and more details of Natasha Montgomery's career with full power when Blade won the NSL Championship at SkyQuest 2004. The NSL News story on 8 December 2004 introduced the future world champion already as a very determined and passionate 4-way competitor. Round 10 of the NSL Championship 2004 can still be viewed on NSL-TV.

The next step came when the NSL News presented Natasha Montgomery up close and personal, together with Thomas Hughes, during an interview on 9 December 2004. NSL News questions as of the future of the team and Natasha herself came up, and she also provided insights of her personal life situation.

The questions as of her and the team's future were answered with the NSL News story 22 December 2004. Natasha Montgomery officially announced that she would have Gary Smith, Shannon Pilcher, Ian Bobo and Thomas Hughes in her new line-up for the 2005 season.

Numerous NSL News stories then followed the path of the new team and Natasha Montgomery on their way to the victory at the USPA Championship 2005. The NSL News coverage of the Shamrock Showdown 2005 and the Malevsky Cup 2005 offered many opportunities to update the audience on the progression of Natasha's DeLand Fire project.

She also competed a few times with Florida Skydiving League team Teiwaz when her team and business schedules allowed the extra time. The NSL News story on 19 September 2005 finally gave her all the credit for becoming the first female US champion in USPA's Open Class competition.

Now it was obviously only a matter of time when Natasha Montgomery would make into the NSL's "on-line Hall of Fame". Her NSL Profile was added to the other VIP's on 11 October 2005. Natasha's career story has not been updated by the NSL ever since winning the USPA Nationals 2005. The update is overdue.

However, Natasha Montgomery was not done yet, as the whole skydiving world knows by now. The NSL News now continued to follow her and DeLand Fire's path on the way to winning the 4-way gold medals at the World Championship of Formation Skydiving 2006 in Germany.

DeLand Fire was now the US national 4-way team, and Natasha Montgomery was out to become the first female 4-way world champion in history. There was more than enough content throughout the 2006 season that kept the NSL News audience in touch with DeLand Fire and Natasha Montgomery.

The sad story on 22 January 2006 reported that Natasha had a bad landing on her back that caused a compression fracture of her 2nd and 3rd vertebra in the lower part of the spine. She had to rest for six weeks.

It was not the greatest start into the World Meet season...

She was back for the Shamrock Showdown 2006 in March, and DeLand Fire posted a 23.2 average after ten rounds. Natasha Montgomery and Gary Smith visited the NSL office for a live interview after the competition.

Finally, Natasha's dreams became true at the end of the 2006 season, and the NSL News reported live from Germany when DeLand Fire won the 5-round competition and brought Excalibur to DeLand. The NSL News story on 5 September 2006 honored Natasha Montgomery as the first female 4-way world champion in history and invited her for another live interview, which begins with a video of her arrival at the NSL office with Excalibur.

The Skydiving Magazine recently honored Natasha Montgomery as the “2006 Skydiver of the Year”. The March issue of the magazine provides the details of this additional recognition of her impressive career.

The NSL News has already shown in the numerous previous stories that there are many different reasons why Natasha Montgomery deserves this title. Her former world-champion teammates Shannon Pilcher and Ian Bobo were already honored the same way in 2005. However, the reasons for the same title of the "Skydiver of the Year" were different ones this time.

The Skydiving Magazine explained why the selection panel thought that Natasha Montgomery should be rewarded for her achievements in 2006:

"One panel member thinks it's significant that Montgomery is the first woman who's won a 4-way world championship in the Open Class.

While the rest of the panel believes that's a feat worthy of mention, it really didn't play a role in the selection process. In short, Montgomery would deserve to be Skydiver of the Year if she weren't a she.

For going from zero to hero in three short years in our sport's most difficult competitive discipline, Natasha Montgomery is 2006 Skydiver of the Year."

He or she - it has been very impressive, and the NSL News couldn't have said it any better.