posted May 3rd, 2007 - The upcoming meet weekend includes the 2007 season openers for two European competition leagues, as well. The worldwide NSL network will connect the 4-way competitions as in the past years. The competition draws will be synchronized, and the scores will be posted on a combined leaderboard.

Great Britain's Grand Prix series of Formation Skydiving competitions has the first 4-way meet scheduled for the upcoming weekend. The NSL News had just visited the United Kingdom in April to report live from the World Challenge 2007 at the Bodyflight Bedford wind tunnel.

Nine British teams competed on April 7/8 in Bedford, and several of these teams will most likely join the Grand Prix competition this weekend. The strongest British team at the World Challenge 2007 was XL, and the NSL News covered the XL performance several times. However, the XL line-up in Bedford was put together only for the wind tunnel competition.

This was surely not the case for the next British team on the World Challenge 2007 leaderboard. Team Elan has the main focus on winning the British national championship this year. Three of the team members, Emma Beyer, Julia Foxwell and Amanda Kemp, are the reigning 4-way world champions in FAI's female 4-way category with Airkix.

The NSL News story on March 29 provided the last update of Team Elan's plans for the 2007 season. An earlier story on January 9 had already broken the news that Team Elan had a new team member with Tarnya Hollis. The World Challenge 2007 was the first competition for the new line-up, and Team Elan finished in 6th position with a 20.3 meet average after the ten rounds in the Bodyflight Bedford wind tunnel.

The NSL News used the opportunity of the visit in Bedford for a live interview with three of the team members after the completion of the competition on Sunday, including the new Center Outside, Tarnya Hollis. The Elan members mentioned in the interview that they consider to attend some of the Grand Prix events this year.

Emma Beyer, Amanda Kemp and Tarnya Hollis provided their first impressions after the World Challenge 2007 with the new line-up. They said that the event felt like a real skydiving competition. The NSL News asked the Elan members for their reasons of the high tunnel scores and how their current performance level compares to last year's at the World Meet 2006.

The three Elan members also commented on the question whether there is a specific female style of 4-way competition performance or not. They could observe Eliana Rodriguez live in action with Airspeed Odyssey in Bedford and compare their own style with hers.

The first 2006 scores of Team Elan at an "outdoor competition" may already appear on the NSL leaderboard this weekend. The video of the whole interview after the "indoor competition" can be viewed by clicking here.