posted Sep 3rd, 2007 - The newest scores on the current NSL leaderboard have come from Italy. Sara Sacchet, Italian FAI judge, provided the NSL News once again with meet information. She had already updated the NSL News audience on June 12 when the Italian teams competed at a regional meet in Fano, Italy.

This time, Italy's national championship 2007 was on the meet agenda and was completed on Saturday, September 1. The event was held in Cumiana, a skydiving center near Turin.

Only the scores of the eleven teams in the AAA/Open Class competition are posted on the current leaderboard. However, additional nine teams competed in Italy's Intermediate Class and eight more teams in the Advanced Class. The dive pools and competition sequences for these categories are very different in Italy. Sara Sacchet mentioned already earlier that Italy plans to synchronize the dive pools with the other international leagues and events next year.

The sequences of Italy's Intermediate Class consist of five random formations and do not include any blocks. The Sky Jokers won the 10-round competition with a 16.6 average.

The dive pool of the Italian Advanced Class includes all of the 22 blocks and the 16 random formations. The only difference to the Open Class is the length of the sequence. Each round at the Italian Nationals 2007 had only 3-point sequences, even though the Italian rules allow 4-point sequences in this category. Sherlock won the 10-round competition with a 14.3 average.

Italy's national team of the past years and bronze medal winner at the World Meet 2006 in Germany, Sinapsi PD, did not compete at the national championship. The Eutelia Spin Team took advantage of the opportunity and won the 2007 championship with a 17.2 average.

The Spin Team, with Alessandro Giovannini, Antonella Chiarin, Enea Savorelli, Mirko Righi and Enzo Muro (Camera) in the line-up, posted the team's highest meet average in the team history. The same line-up had posted a 13.9 average at this year's Valentine's Meet in Eloy in February.

However, the 17.2 average might not qualify the team as the Italian national team for the World Meet 2008 in France.

Sara Sacchet explained that the FIPaS Bureau of the Italian federation is not satisfied with this scoring level yet. It was already officially announced that the 17.2 average did not automatically win the ticket to France 2008. The decision who will represent Italy next year will probably be announced at the end of 2007.

The Italian federation does not have the same problem in 8-way. The national 8-way team, Ex3mo, delivered at the national championship as expected and won with a very convincing 16.8 average after ten rounds.

In fact, Ex3mo is consistently and consequently moving closer to the very top level of 8-way competition in the world. The 16.8 average is a new team record and included a 24-pointer in Round 2 (see video), which improved the former Italian highscore for a single round (21) by three points. Former Sinapsi PD member Marco Arrigo has been pushing his 8-way team to new levels of 8-way competition in Italy.

Ex3mo had won the 8-way bronze medals of the FAI World Cup 2007 in August in Russia with a 15.8 average. Last week's 16.8 average moves the Italian team another step closer to Russia and possibly the USA. The French 8-way team seems to be out of reach for any new contender in 8-way. The new German 8-way team EADS has a hard time to keep up with Ex3mo and has its own national championship coming up next week.

Ex3mo's 4-way team (Ex3mix), with Maximiliano Alberdi, Fabrizio del Giudice, Luca Stanga, Francesco Tegoni and Luca Fontanella on camera, also won the 4-way bronze medals at the Italian Nationals 2007 with a 16.4 average. The team had already attended the World Challenge 2007 in April this year. The second place in Italy last week went to Team Felix of the Areo Club Poseidon.