posted May 1st, 2005 - The NSL News recently received a news flash from Belgium. The Belgian national team, Spa Hayabusa, posted a video on the team website, which shows a recent training jump. The e-news update mentions that the training jump was done last weekend: "Because of all the requests about the training jump last weekend, here is the site where you can watch the video from Spa Hayabusa making 43 points in 35 seconds during a training jump in Spa."

The news section of the Hayabusa website adds: "Spa Hayabusa probably beats the world record, watch the video here! These guys are really Going Fast!" The NSL News became interested in the jump and took a closer look. The video shows a very nice performance of a relatively fast random sequence (O-H-P-Q-L).

The NSL News has posted training jumps of the top teams once in a while, as Fastrax training jumps on January 22, or DeLand Fire in training on March 14. NSL-TV usually features only real competition jumps, however, the NSL News captures training materials once in a while for news stories.

Spa Hayabusa recently competed at the FSL Shamrock Showdown 2005 at Skydive DeLand and left Florida after a quite impressive 10-round performance. NSL-TV is still in the middle of this event's coverage. The Belgian team finished with an 18.2 meet average and scored very close to the best teams of the world at a few rounds in DeLand.

Hayabusa's raw score of 43 points would be a new 4-way world record if it happened at a competition. This was enough reason for the NSL News to take a closer look at the jump. The NSL judging department detected a few factors, which would be in the way of a world record, even if this was the video of an official competition jump.

It seems to be quite unlikely that the biggest portion of the subterminal page would be counted as scoring formations by an official judging panel. Several grips of the first three formations after the exit (Satellite, Bow, Side Body) are difficult to see, and there is no difference any longer between an infringement and a non-judgeable formation or inter.

Spa Hayabusa would also possibly face trouble with the pictures of some of their Satellites. Some judges at international meets of the past have randomly refused to accept arm grips as shown in this image of Spa Hayabusa's Satellite. Arms and legs are defined in the rule book and have occasionally caused controversial discussions between teams and judges.

It is not always easy to find enough room for a proper grip at certain formations, such as the Zig Zag of Block 21, the Ritz of Block 19 or the Satellite. Judges have already complained about critical grips in the past, and the newly added definition of "clearly presented" does not make it much easier for the teams.

Overall, the final score of Spa Hayabusa's featured jump is not easy to determine and may depend on the judging panel. However, there is no doubt that the Belgian national team had a great training jump and delivered the 43 points within the working time of 35 seconds. The actual performance indicates once again that Spa Hayabusa continues to move upward. The next round of the FSL Shamrock Showdown 2005 will be on NSL-TV very soon, and it will also show Hayabusa once again in live competition.