posted Jan 15th, 2008 - Very exciting news came once again from the United Kingdom a few days ago. The preparations for the World Challenge 2008 are in full swing, as the NSL News story on 12 January 2008 already mentioned.

Bodyflight Bedford's owner and creator of this high-profile tunnel competition, Paul Mayer, followed up and now provided the NSL News with a list of registered teams.

Last year's World Challenge was already one of the most exciting events of the whole 2007 season and a real turning point for the arguably best 4-way team in the world at the moment, Airspeed Odyssey. The NSL News reported live from the event site in Bedford in April 2007 and followed up with several stories, which are still available in the NSL Archives 2007.

The NSL News coverage included comments by Airspeed Odyssey's team captain, Center Outside Craig Girard. He mentioned more than once that his team's performance in Bedford brought a significant change to the team attitude and initiated a new approach of real skydiving competitions.

Airspeed Odyssey followed up on Craig Girard's very inspired and highly motivated guidance with an incredible competition season last year. At the end, the Arizona team had a 25.3 average posted on the scoreboard of the USPA Nationals 2007 and qualified as the US national 4-way team for the World Championship of Formation Skydiving 2008 in France.

The 28.0 average at the World Challenge 2007 had laid the foundation for this outstanding result.

The World Challenge 2007 had featured a most exciting race between Team Fastrax and Airspeed Odyssey. Eliana Rodriguez, Craig Girard, Andy Delk and Mark Kirkby won the competition by one single point, which came at the very end after a 1-point deficit going into the final round.

The NSL News audience will also remember that the pick-up team XL (Pete Allum, Steve Hamilton, John McIver and Brian Johnson) came from nowhere, took the lead over Airspeed Odyssey and Team Fastrax in Round 1 and defended the first place throughout the first five rounds.

However, XL could not maintain the sensational top level for the remaining five rounds and ended up in 3rd place with a 26.1 tunnel average. Team Fastrax surely kept up with Airspeed Odyssey at the World Challenge 2007 but could not follow the Airspeed pace to the very end of the 2007 season.

The World Challenge 2008 will offer at least the same drama and promises once again a most exciting performance level. The stakes may be even higher this year since it is the beginning of a World Meet season.

Bodyflight Bedford offers the same jackpot of £20,000 for the winners as in 2007. However, it is also a great opportunity for the top teams to challenge each other at this point in time.

The list of teams shows that this year's tunnel competition cannot be much more exciting than it will be on the last weekend of March 2008. The three top contenders for 2008 medals in France have signed up for the World Challenge 2008: Airspeed Odyssey, France Maubeuge and Hayabusa Defence. Several other top teams are already registered and will also post world-class scores.

Airspeed Odyssey is probably the top contender in Bedford, while the French and Belgian national 4-way teams can use the opportunity to check the distance between them and the highscorer of 2007. All other teams will use the US performance as the benchmark for their own status.

Hayabusa Defence competed against Airspeed Odyssey at the World Challenge 2007, as well, and ended up 33 points behind the US team with a 24.7 average in 4th place. However, it was only the beginning of the season for the new line-up with Luc Verstrepen in the Center Inside slot.

The Belgian team got stronger month by month and eventually won the FAI World Cup 2007 after a jump-off with the French national team from Maubeuge. Hayabusa Defence followed up with a victory over the Golden Knights at the CISM Championship in India in October.

The competition between Hayabusa Defence and Airspeed Odyssey will not be the same as it was at the World Challenge 2007. This time, the Belgian team wants to impress the US champion, while Airspeed Odyssey will try to keep some of last year's distance to the challenger.

The French team will already know in Bedford what Airspeed Odyssey has to offer in March 2008. Both teams have the FSL Shamrock Showdown 2008 on their meet agendas. Hayabusa Defence will not compete in DeLand on March 15 - 16, which makes the World Challenge 2008 the first real showdown between all of the best teams in the world at that time.

The World Challenge 2008 will also offer an additional competition class to the 4-way teams for the first time. Paul Mayer decided to have a separate category for the AA Class teams in 2008.

The first teams have already signed up for the new category: Baccanalia (UK), Team Future (USA), Phobia (UK), Innuendo (UK).

The list of teams in the AAA Class currently includes: Kactus Hunters (RUS), AlpenGlow (AUS), Hayabusa (BEL), Fusion (UK), Airmaggedon (SLO), Skylight Barkli (RUS), Pro Team (FIN), X3M4S (NOR), French 4Way (FRA), Springboks (SAF), Ocean 5 (RUS), Arizona Airspeed (USA), Aeon (USA), Ex3Mix (ITA), Bodyflight Storm (UK).

The NSL News will follow up with more information soon and introduce the other registered teams.