posted Jul 4th, 2007 - Tuesday was a challenging day at the Malevsky Cup 2007 in Stupino, Russia. The teams and competitors on site had to deal with a weather situation that did not allow much training the day before the competition. The NSL News had technical problems with the setup for NSL-TV.

The weather got better in the late afternoon, and the 4-way teams and accuracy competitors had the chance to get familiar with the meet environment. NSL-TV and technicians of the Russian hosts both lost some damaged camera equipment and finally gave up all hope for NSL-TV coverage. However, chief organizer Anatoly Zhirov found a way to fix the problem late at night, and NSL-TV is ready to provide competition videos of the meet.

It happened at the right time since the 4-way competition at the Malevsky Cup 2007 promises most exciting footage. The field of 4-way teams is much smaller compared to the participation in the past years. However, four of the six teams are on the very top level of 4-way competition in the world and have the capability to post world records at any time.

The possibility of a world record is obviously very realistic. The sequence of Round 2 (E-Q-D-J-K) is fast enough for each of these four teams (Airspeed Odyssey, Team Fastrax, Sky Panthers, Black Cat) to break the current world record of 44 points for a single round.

FAI Anton Malevsky Memorial International Cup 2007 4 - 6 July 2007, Stupino - Russia The NSL News coverage of the Malevsky Cup 2007 is brought to you with the help of:

In fact, the defending world record holder even has the opportunity to improve the highest score in the history of Formation Skydiving competition. The Russian team Black Cat, with Vasily Korotkov, Alexander Kvochur, Alexey Minaev, Vadim Niyazov and Evgeny Staschenko, shares the current world record with Extreme.RU from Russia.

Black Cat and Extreme.RU scored the 44-pointers at the Malevsky Cup 2006, and both jumps can still be viewed on last year's RealXstream version of NSL-TV (Archives > 2006 > Leagues > Special Events > Malevsky Cup 2006). Extreme.RU has not signed up for this year's Malevsky Cup. However, Black Cat is ready to defend the record with the same line-up and score even higher.

The three other top contenders will not just watch Black Cat challenging the team's own record. In fact, it is very unlikely that the 44-pointer will survive today. All four teams are so well trained that one of them will most likely have a jump that is good enough to set a new world record. NSL-TV will hopefully be able to show all four record attempts in Round 2. Stay tuned.