posted Aug 21st, 2007 - The UK Nationals 2007 have offered even more excitement so far than anybody might have wanted to experience. The competition began with a false start, as it became apparent that the draw was accessible on the internet already on Wednesday, August 15. Meet Director, Chief Judge, DZ Owner and the team captains decided in a meeting to re-draw the whole competition.

As a part of the draw synchronization all around the NSL network, last weekend's competition draw came from Sweden to the NSL office Wednesday night European time. An hour later, the NSL forwarded the complete competition draw for all classes only to one judge in Great Britain.

The draw was not posted at any location of the NSL website due to the importance of the upcoming weekend with its national championships in Great Britain, Sweden and the Netherlands and to avoid any possible access. The files for the competition were uploaded Friday evening.

Nevertheless, the draw was available after it was posted at Sweden's event pages for the national championship, which began Thursday last week. The website's language is Swedish, however, it is not too difficult to find the location, and the numbers and letters of the dive pool are the same everywhere.

There is nothing really extraordinary or new about the fact that the competition draw of any meet could be available even days before the actual competition begins, it has happened many times in the history of Formation Skydiving competition. Bad weather alone can delay any jumping activities for an unlimited time after the official competition draw has been completed and posted.

The rules do not allow any team to jump after the competition draw has been posted. Most countries now also define tunnel training as illegal training. Teams can be disqualified if they break these rules, and if they are being caught by the officials. However, policing this situation is very challenging.

The situation last weekend in Great Britain was still different. The competition draw was not posted at the competition site, and the teams did not know that it was already posted in Sweden. Thursday and Friday were legal training days at Target Skysports in Great Britain, the hosting skydiving center, and also at any other locations.

No existing rule covers the multi-country competition, which did not exist until the meet synchronization was set in place a few years ago, even though the meaning of the specific rules are easy to understand and easy to interprete accordingly. Any British team that might have had knowledge of the competition draw last week prior to the start of the competition would violate the rules and the meet ethics if they trained the specific jumps before the meet. Disqualification would be looming.

The British meet management did not assume any violations and did not blame anybody on competition site: "We would like to make it clear that no personnel from the DZ or BPA are placing blame to anyone. The re-draw competition will start at 8:30 am on Sunday, August 19." The move was only a safety measure to make sure that each team would start with a clean plate.

Several teams had already completed Round 1 by then, which was identical with last weekend's sequence at the many other events (D-9-J-20). The two all-female line-ups of Team Storm and Team Elan had already posted their first scores, and Elan was up by one point (22 - 21).

Then a new surprise waited for the local and worldwide audience. The ghost team FlightSchool posted a 28-pointer for the first round and shocked the AAA Class field. The FlightSchool line-up even consisted of three British competitors, all former XL members (John McIver, Steve Hamilton, Thomas Hughes) and Niklas Hemlin. Thomas Hughes and Niklas Hemlin are Fastrax members and were in Great Britain for a tunnel training camp at Bodyflight Bedford. However, FlightSchool signed up as a guest team and cannot steal the British Open Class slot for the World Meet 2008 from Team Elan or Team Storm.

The scores of the old Round 1 were wiped off the scoreboard on Saturday evening, and the new Round 1 (P-13-7) was scheduled for Sunday morning with the first take-off at 8:30 am.

The weather situation in Great Britain did not allow any jumping on Sunday. There was a new delay of more than a whole day between the new competition draw and the start of the first round. This time, it was very clear for everybody on competition site that any training anywhere, including the two British wind tunnels, would be illegal.

Finally, the real competition began on Monday, August 20, and three rounds were completed in Great Britain yesterday. FlightSchool is far ahead of the rest of the field after three completed rounds. Team Storm had the better start this time and has a 3-point lead over Team Elan. Aardvark Zulu is only one point behind Elan. The complete British leaderboard is the most currently posted one at the NSL website, while the other scores of last weekend's events are still posted on the same overview page.

It will take a little while until the next scores of the British Nationals 2007 will be posted. The meet takes a week-long break and will be resumed this upcoming Saturday. This is normal procedure and according to the planned schedule in Great Britain. However, it causes obviously another similar and interesting situation for the teams considering the specific rules.

The British Parachute Association (BPA) has taken care of the unusual situation that the national championship is being held over two consecutive weekends with time-off during the week and is prepared for the case that the competition was not completed on the first weekend. The BPA rules say that "...unused formations only will be used for a re-draw to generate the number of rounds required".

This means that the currently posted sequences for Rounds 4 - 10 have become obsolete: "In the event of the competition event not being completed, a re-draw will be carried out on the Friday evening of that next weekend."

Former BPA representative for Formation Skydiving competition, Andy Scott, mentioned that the weekend concept has worked well in the past: "The weekend format has only required a rollover to the second weekend once before, and then all events were completed before the end of the 2nd weekend. We have never needed a third weekend."

The new competition draw for Rounds 4 - 10 on Friday evening seems to put all teams back into the same starting position. However, there are still options that could raise some questions. The teams can obviously not practice the upcoming new actual competition jumps during the week.

However, an eager team could make some efforts to become better prepared than others. It is a fact that the blocks and random formations of the first three rounds will not be drawn again. It is also a fact that the teams now know the limited dive pool that will be used for the re-draw.

There is no rule that would deny the teams the opportunity to practice the 15 remaining blocks and 10 random formations this week, either in freefall or in the wind tunnel, or both. This is still a better situation compared to last weekend's issue with the earlier posted draw. All teams know the upcoming limited dive pool and have the same options. The NSL News will go back to the athletic part of the competition very soon.