posted Mar 29th, 2007 - The NSL News story on January 9 surprised the audience with an update from Great Britain. Three reigning Airkix 4-world champions in FAI's female category, Julia Foxwell, Amanda Kemp and Emma Beyer, had formed a new line-up with a new name. Tarnya Hollis was now flying in the Point position for "Team Elan". Former Airkix member Claire "Sparky" Scott joined Bodyflight Storm.

Team speaker Emma Beyer had mentioned for the January article that it was not clear by then how much the new line-up would be able to train. Team Elan was busy preparing for the 2007 season in the meantime, and the efforts seem to have materialized in a promising plan for this year, as Emma Beyer explained for the NSL News:

"Since our last update in January we have finalised our training schedule, done some tunnel time and started jumping together. This year we have decided to switch all our training to Europe, despite the successful last two years in California."

Perris Airkix was the official team name throughout the 2006 season since the British team trained a lot at the skydiving center in California. Dan BC was the Airkix coach and guided last year's line-up to the gold medals at the FAI World Championship of Formation Skydiving 2006 in Germany.

Team Elan now feels confident enough to continue without the veteran coach on his home turf in Perris. The new line-up will work as much as possible with Emma Beyer's husband, former Airspeed member Gary Beyer, who is still based at Skydive Arizona in Eloy. Other coaching arrangements have not been made yet. Emma Beyer explained the reasons for the changes:

"We have chosen Skydive Spain for the bulk of our jumps, with additional training planned at Target Skysports. Both places are run by Steve Swallow and his family. Although this gives us the conveniences of training for the next World Championships closer to home, there were also many other factors which came into consideration."

Emma Beyer and all Elan members were much aware of the fact that it is very unusual for hard-training teams to complete most of their jumping program outside the USA. Thus, the team gave the matter a lot of thought:

"The last thing we wanted to do was lose the benefits of training at one of the USA's biggest team dropzones just for the sake of convenience. But we discussed what we needed with Skydive Spain and Target and were 100% confident they could deliver. They've also run UK Nationals at Hibaldstow since around 1995, which was the most highly attended national championship in the world after the US Nationals. This made us feel comfortable taking the risk of moving."

It is always a major concern for committed teams to complete the planned number of training and competition jumps, and Team Elan's training plan is based on 16 to 20 jumps per day. This limited the options for selecting the team's new home, and Emma Beyer explained that the team already made its first experiences in Spain:

"This is a high number of jumps and pretty much unheard of outside the States. On our first day here we made ten jumps in four hours, our second day we did 16 jumps, and today we did 20 jumps - if we'd wanted to we could have done more! The weather is also fantastic - blue skies and the perfect temperature to train."

Team Elan is obviously happy with the new logistics, which also include easy access to the Bodyflight windtunnel in Bedford. Emma Beyer explained the additional advantages the teams sees with improved facilities in Europe:

"Now that we have the Bodyflight tunnel in the UK, it doesn't really make much sense for European teams like us to keep going to the USA for every camp - everything we have is on our doorstep, which is great."

The first serious test for the new line-up is coming up soon, and the team is getting ready for it:

"So far our training is in the early stages, but things are on track for our first meet with the new line-up, the Bodyflight World Challenge on April 7 - 8, one day after we get back from Spain."

The NSL News will report live from the event site in Bedford and keep focus on Team Elan, as well. It seems as if there are enough good reasons for teams in the female category to get in shape early enough. Team Elan will already face strong competition in Great Britain with Claire "Sparky" Scott's new team Bodyflight Storm.

The next step at the World Meet 2008 might be even more challenging. France will once again try to capture the gold medals in the female category. Fastrax Blue, probably the new US team, already posted a 15.2 average at the FSL Shamrock Showdown 2007, the team's first competition. Russia has a new and strong line-up, and Norway has also put together a new and strong team with Lise Nansen/Aune guiding the team. The NSL News will follow up with more information.