posted Jan 14th, 2008 - The series of international updates continues with a team from Canada. The Cat Women were on their way to the beach when they stopped by at the NSL office last week. They were done after a hard day of winter training in DeLand and took the time for an interview with the NSL News.

The Cat Women were formed at the end of the 2006 season under a different team name: Ovulation. The current line-up consists of Mia Prebinski (Center Inside, 24, 350 jumps), Marie-Eve Dalleire (Center Outside, 25, 510 jumps), Nathalie Metivier (Point, 28, 983 jumps), Jacinthe Labelle (Tail, 30, 250 jumps) and Rene Deveault (Camera, 38, 2200 jumps). Jacinthe Labelle replaced one original Ovulation member in 2007.

Coach Vincent Lemay is the youngest member of the team project with his 19 years of age - even though he is not even the youngest member of his own team Evolution, the Canadian national 4-way team in the Open Class. His brother Benoit is only 17 years of age. The Cat Women chose Vincent as their coach since they connected mostly with him of the Lemay family.

The Cat Women completed approx. 70 jumps in 2007 and had a few hours of windtunnel training with Vincent Lemay. The team won the battle with the Gravity Girls by six points after ten rounds with a 9.2 average. The winter training in DeLand added another 50 jumps to the team's logbook.

It was a tough camp, as the Cat women had to learn right-door exits from the Pilatus Porter. Coach Vincent Lemay had his own experiences with this challenge. The NSL News story on 11 December 2007 had reported on Evolution's exit training.

The Cat Women are proud to become the first Canadian all-female line-up that will compete at a World Championship of Formation Skydiving. None of the team members has ever been in a seriously committed 4-way team before, and the goals are set on a modest level. The Cat Women are simply looking for a great meet experience in France this year.

The Canadian team has scheduled another training camp in April, which will once again include four hours of windtunnel training in Raeford on the way down to Florida. There will also be a few additional weekend camps on their home turf at Nouvelair in Canada.

Nouvelair has a Twinotter as the dz's jump plane. The Cat Women jumped form a Pilatus Porter for the first time when they came to DeLand. They found it very difficult to shift the positions and learn new positions. However, they were still very satisfied with their own learning curve and contributed much of the progression to their coach's great work and experience.

Coach Vincent Lemay gave the Cat Women a lot of credit for the attention they gave him while he was coaching them: "They are really very hungry for information, listen very carefully and then act accordingly. It was easy to give directions and see them executed properly. They learned a lot by going slowly and precisely."

He also felt the difference between his own all-male team and the all-female Cat Women: "The biggest challenge for team and coach is the emotional balance within the group. The highs are really high - and the lows are real lows..."

His evaluation was fully acknowledged by the team members who are aware of this situation. The Cat Women confirmed that even coach and videographer have to be careful with the language and the psychological approach to the team's work. They said that they have to be even more careful when it comes to the communication between the team members.

The new experiences for the young team at their first training camp included the frustration over bad weather. The Cat Women 2007 had trained only on weekends. The team members said that it is much more difficult to be on the ground during a team training camp, compared to a missed day of funjumping. The expectations and the motivation are higher and cause more disappointment when the weather doesn't cooperate all the time. However, they also learned that the progression of a longer training camp is much better compared to weekend training.

All team members have full-time jobs and skydiving as their hobby. They invest their vacation time for the team project. The biggest challenge was the planning session for the training camps and the competitions. However, each Cat Woman confirmed that it is all worth the efforts. The fast learning curve of the team and of each individual comes along with a lot of personal satisfaction and pays back for the investment of time, money and efforts.

The Cat Women had company by a Canadian team fan during the visit in DeLand. Annie Pelletier is a Canadian top athlete and won a bronze medal in springboard diving at the Olympic Games in Atlanta 1996. She understands more about athletic top performance than each Cat Woman and provides her experiences and input to the team and the coach.

Annie Pelletier met coach Vincent Lemay at Nouvelair in 2007 and is now a skydiver herself. She has made 60 jumps so far and follows the team with greatest interest. She is not the alternate yet. However, the athletic talent and coordination skills of her previous sports career will probably help her to catch up quickly.

The Cat Women remember their own team history with a team profile story that the team's Point, Nathalie Metivier, wrote after the Canadian Nationals 2007. Her team had just won an exciting race with the Gravity Girls for the slot as the Canadian national 4-way team in IPC's female category.

The Story of CAT

By Nathalie Métivier and the Catwomen

Once upon a time... The idea to form a team of girls in 4-way Formation Skydiving came up when the boys from Evolution returned from Germany in the summer of 2006. There was no Canadian all-girl team at the World Championships - then why not forming a team?

Nothing was really serious in this project at the beginning, and even less serious was the name for this team: Ovulation. The project began to be taken out of proportion in the middle of last winter, and we were more determined than ever to make this dream come true.

The ultimate goal of the beginning remained the same - even when the line-up and the name of the team changed: participate at the World Championship 2008, together with Evolution.

We began the training with jumps and windtunnel training under the watchful eye of our coach, Vincent Lemay. We have experienced joy, frustration, and most of the time a lot of pride, as we witnessed our progression. We were repeating continuously our favorite motto to encourage ourselves: "We will get them all"!

Despite our desire to overtake our rivals, we couldn't have planned a better competition than the one we had with the Gravity Girls at the Canadian Nationals 2007. The nervousness overwhelmed us each time a when new scores were posted on the board. However, it was a great pleasure to see Vincent or René Deveault, our cameraman, come back with a satisfied smile.

Who would have believed that the tie breaking will occur after round 8? We were already thinking about a 11th round to break the tie! The fact of not being on the same load as the Gravity Girls contributed to alleviate our stress. We came out having an all Quebec load with Synergy and Serious Fun.

We have taken advantage of René’s experience and gave him the nickname of Matou (Tomcat). Moreover, Vincent, our kitten, has demonstrated an astonishing patience during the whole training program. I am persuaded that after our first quarrel at the windtunnel (we hadn't made a single jump together before), Vincent started wondering why he had accepted to coach us, an all-girl team. But, he has shown us a great deal of patience to lessen our frustrations and to defuse conflict. He told us: "I am happy that your first quarrel happens now!" This is what the team is made of, and it is not always easy.

His words have had all their meaning in the following weeks preceeding the Canadian Nationals 2007. We realized that being part of a team is way more than just jumping together. I have to say that a few days before our victory we were in the middle of a crisis. Fortunately, Michel Lemay could find the right words to get us stick together until the competition started.

During the last months we have all learned to work on ourselves like never before. More than once, the "whatever comes, accept it" has been difficult to deal with. However, being part of a team includes: leave your pride on the side, swallow personal frustration, make sacrifices, accept that there are four of us to make any decision, forgive each other when we make mistakes and so on. Most of all, having an absolute confidence in the three other girls who were almost unknown to each other a year ago. We are now members of the first women team to represent Canada at the next World Championship.

What a journey we have made together since February 2007! And we have to continue on the same hard road in 2008. This is just the beginning of a fantastic adventure, our dream is coming true: France is waiting for us in 2008! Nothing happens unless there is a dream first...