posted Nov 8th, 2007 - The NSL News reported on September 21 that Italy is joining the NSL/ESL Network in 2008. The Italian parachuting federation (FIPaS) agreed to synchronize the dive pools for three competition classes (AAA - AA - A).

Italy's IPC Delegate and FAI Judge Sara Sacchet recently followed up with the event schedule for the 2008 season, which is now posted at the new league page for Italy.

Italy has scheduled five meets between April and August. Each competition will offer the three synchronized competition classes for the participating teams. Casale Monferrato (April 19), Verona (May 3), Fano (May 31), Arezzo (June 21) are hosting the four meets of the regular season.

The Italian Nationals 2008 are scheduled for August 23 - 31 and will be held in Aquino. The same three competition classes will also be applied at the championship event.

Sara Sacchet also updated the NSL News with the latest information of the Italian national teams for 2008. The 8-way team Ex3mo has already been selected as the national team for the World Championship of Formation Skydiving 2008 in France. The NSL News covered Ex3mo last time on October 8.

The situation in the 4-way event has become even more complicated. The NSL News story on September 3 reported that the Eutelia Spin Team won the Italian Nationals 2007 with a 17.2 average.

However, the FIPaS Bureau of the Italian federation was not satisfied with the winning scoring level. The Italian officials officially announced that the 17.2 average did not automatically win the ticket to France 2008. The decision who will represent Italy next year would be announced at the end of 2007.

The official Italian 4-way champion of 2007, Eutelia Spin Team, recently disbanded. Two team members left the winning line-up a few weeks after the championship. Sara Sacchet said that the Italian selection rules for the national team require more than two members continue with the winning team.

The Italian federation has been used to send a world-class team to the international competitions in the past years. World-class team Sinapsi PD was always in medal contention when the team competed at world meets and brought home a set of bronze medals from the World Meet 2006 in Germany. Italy had already won another set of bronze medals in 1991.

Felix Poseidon won the silver medals this year in Italy with a 16.6 average, two points ahead of the Ex3mo 4-way line-up, EX3Mix. It is quite unlikely that the FIPaS officials will select the team in second or third place as the national team for 2008. The NSL News will wait for the next update from Italy and a possible decision who will be selected as the Italian national 4-way team for 2008.