posted Apr 18th, 2005 - The NSL News story of April 13 had just covered the performance of the Norwegian national 4-way team Arcteryx at the FSL Shamrock Showdown 2005. It took only one weekend until Arcteryx would catch the attention of the NSL News once again.

Arcteryx Point Ditta Valsdottir mentioned that her team was looking for more competition practise and also for the opportunity to build confidence by posting higher scores. The second meet of the Florida Skydiving League last weekend in Lake Wales gave the Norwegian team to chance to achieve both goals.

The easy part was to get more competition practise. It is just a 2-hour drive from DeLand to Lake Wales, and it was worth the effort for Arcteryx. The second part depended on the competition draw and on the performance of the team on Saturday, April 16. Both factors worked well together for Arcteryx.

The competition draw for the 6-round meet was probably one of the fastest in the history of the National Skydiving League. Rounds one, three and four each consisted of random formations and only one block. The sequence of round five included two blocks, however, one of the blocks was the fast Block 9 (Cat+Acc - Cat+Acc). Most of the random formations were drawn at the beginning of the sequences and gave the teams a head start against the clock. It was surely a great opportunity to post high scores for each team competing last weekend.

Norway's Arctery was also ready for the meet and performed according to the team's hope for a faster draw. In fact, the meet average of 20.7 was probably more than Arcteryx expected. It was a fast draw, however, breaking the 20.0 benchmark still required a top performance.

Once the meet was completed in Lake Wales, the Norwegian team was very eager to learn the results of the Southwest Skydiving League competition in Eloy. Both Airspeed line-ups, Odyssey and Velocity, attended the event on their home turf. The Arcteryx members knew that Airspeed's SSL scores would reflect the value of the Norwegian scores in Lake Wales.

Word came from the west coast to DeLand on Sunday that Odyssey scored somewhere in the 20's. The Velocity scores were unknown, however, there was information that Velocity had won the internal Airspeed competition for the first time this year. Arcteryx had to wait for the details until Monday when the SSL scores were officially posted on the NSL website.

The Norwegian team will still be happy after studying the SSL results. Airspeed Odyssey finished the 6-round meet only one point ahead of Arcteryx with a 20.8 average, while Velocity won the AAA Class competition with an impressive 22.8 average.

It was no surprise that Velocity would come out on top of the Airspeed race this time. Both teams were already very close at the SSL Valentine's Meet 2005 in February. Last weekend, Odyssey had to replace Center Outside Craig Girard with retired Airspeed veteran John Eagle. The 20.8 average is a great result, however, it was not good enough to keep up with Airspeed Velocity's complete line-up and the 22.8 average.

Acteryx will have a good reason to be happy with the team's scores. Finishing close to Odyssey means a lot, even though this Airspeed line-up competed with an alternate. Any team could not wish for a better alternate than John Eagle. However, Velocity's 22.8 average was still the real benchmark for the Norwegian team.

The direct comparison shows Velocity ahead of Norway by a 2.1 average after six rounds. Arcteryx still managed to match Velocity's score in rounds one and two. The fast rounds three, four and five put Velocity far ahead. The NSL News will try to get feedback from the Norwegian and the Airspeed headquarters as soon as possible.

Both events in Eloy and Lake Wales had much more exciting competition, and the NSL News will follow up with the meet stories and NSL-TV very soon. Stay tuned.