posted Aug 7th, 2007 - Guillaume Bernier, Mathieu Bernier, Julien Degen, Jeremie Rollet and Alexandre Pereira have a long day at the FAI World Cup 2007. In fact, their day is almost twice as long as for the other teams and competitors. They are members of both French national A-Teams in Russia, in 4-way and in 8-way.

The NSL News story on January 16 explained how the French selection process works and how national coach Jerome David selected the line-ups. The story on February 1 followed up and provided additional information.

The four French 4-way and 8-way competitors, Guillaume Bernier, Mathieu Bernier, Julien Degen, Jeremie Rollet, and videographer Alexandre Pereira, plus coach and alternate Marin Ferre, cannot complain so far.

Things are going well for them in Russia. They are in contention for gold medals in 4-way, and they have the 8-way competition completely under control. There are very realistic chances that they might win both sets of gold medals.

Nobody has succeeded yet in the history of Formation Skydiving competition to win double-gold in 4-way and 8-way at an FS World Championship. However, Airspeed members Craig Girard, Neal Houston, John Eagle and Mark Kirkby already won both 4-way and 8-way gold medals at a previous World Cup, in Eloy 2000.

Davide Moy, Erwan Pouliquen, Julien Losantos and Marin Ferre missed the same opportunity two years later at the World Cup in Spain 2002 by three points in 4-way after winning the 8-way competition.

Airspeed repeated the 2000 success at the World Cup 2005, once again on home turf in Eloy. Craig Girard, Brian Johnson, Andy Delk and Eliana Rodriguez won both 4-way and 8-way gold medals. Will Pesek was filming both line-ups.

Marin Ferre, technical coach and alternate for the current French 4-way line-up, was an active member when his own line-up tried to win both gold medals at the World Cup 2002 and then again at the World Championship in France 2003. He knows how difficult it is, and he will have good advise for the team.

However, even winning both gold medals at this World Cup is obviously nothing unique or special since it has been done two times before. The real challenge will come next year at the World Championship in France, Maubeuge, when the seemingly impossible can be challenged once again. The World Cup 2007 serves as a good experience for the French line-up.

The French 8-way machine has been running strongly and smoothly so far in Russia, even though the reigning world champions allowed Russia to tie their 15-pointer in the slowest round of the meet. France lost the first point of the jump in the judging room.

A major event happened in the race for the bronze medals between Italy and Germany. The new EADS 8-way line-up surprised their Italian rivals with a big upset in Round 3. The 21-pointer came like a lightning strike from nowhere and shattered the previous 11-year old German 8-way record of 18 points.

EADS made up for all the lost ground through the first four rounds and even created a 1-point lead over Italy's Ex3mo. The bronze medal position is currently in German possession. The Italian team at least recovered in Round 6 and tied Germany's 11-pointer. The Russian 8-way team is out of sight, however, the race between Germany and Italy for the bronze medals has heated up.

FAI Controllor Dr. Rainer "Exi" Hoenle had some additional observations of the 8-way competition.

Exi's World Cup Corner

The 11-year old German 8-way record of 18 points fell in Round 5. Italy's Ex3mo slammed a Wagga Side Body piece into the formation at the completion of the block move in Round 6, which almost funneled the whole formation. Several seconds passed by before the team re-grouped, and the clock stopped at 11 points.

The Italian team tried to build the 13th point when time ran out. The judging of the jump would have become even more interesting considering a possible ommitted formation. However, the 11-pointer was posted on the scoreboard.