posted Jul 5th, 2012 - The NSL News has brought up the internal and unofficial Scandinavian championship quite a few times in the past. The teams from Norway, Finland, Sweden, Denmark, and sometimes Iceland, are keeping their eyes on each other's scores while competing at the same events or even at different meets.

This internal competition usually takes place in the Open Class. However, this year the Scandinavian countries also have three lineups for the female 4way competition at the World Meet 2012. Norway's team Polaris is well known to the NSL News audience, the Danish Divas were on two NSL leaderboards in 2011, as well as Fire from Sweden.

This year, the Scandinavian race for top honors in the female 4way category includes probably even more teams than in the Open Class competition where Norway and Finland don't seem to have lineups for Dubai 2012. Polaris has different goals than Divas and Fire and will most likely finish on top of the internal Scandinavian competition on their way to pursue a set of medals. However, the 2012 race between Sweden and Denmark might be exciting and has begun.

June 28th, 2012		Rd. 1	Rd. 2	Rd. 3	Rd. 4	Rd. 5	Rd. 6	Rd. 7	Rd. 8	Rd. 9	Rd. 10	Total	Avg
Rank	AAA Class	E,8,3	L,13,18	1,C,H,7	5,J,K,22	20,G,17	B,6,11	O,F,A,4	15,19,D	21,P,12	Q,M,2,14	Total	Avg
1	VAF (DK)	15	14	17	17	14	17	22	15	16	17	164	16.4
2	Fire (SE)	17	14	12	16	14	16	19	15	14	16	153	15.3
3	Danish Divas (DK)	14	13	15	15	12	15	23	13	14	15	149	14.9
4	Blue Motion (DK)	13	10	14	10	7	11	17	11	10	15	118	11.8

Divas and Fire met last week at Bodyflight Bedford for a small indoor competition with two other teams from Denmark. It was the first time that both teams competed at the same time and at the same place. The Divas attended another Danish indoor competition last year with the same lineup (14.4) and followed up with a 10.6 outdoor average at the 3rd Dubai Championship 2011.

Fire attended two outdoor meets in Sweden (8.5 - 9.6) last year and now came back with a slightly different lineup. Helena Hanses has replaced last year's Point Victoria Burén.

It was a promising start for the Swedish team. The Danish Divas improved their own indoor average of 2011 to 14.9 last week but had to accept Fire's 4-point advantage after ten rounds. It was a good battle with seven winning rounds for Fire, two for Divas and one tie. The Divas are already sanctioned as the national team for Denmark in Dubai, while Fire still has to qualify officially at Sweden's national championships.

Coach Joey Jones has been working with the team from Sweden, and he also competed at the same indoor competition last week. His team VAF was created for the occasion. John Behrendt Petersen, Anne Mine Petersen and Bodyflight Voluntas member Martin Søeby Mikkelsen are from the same skydiving club (Varde Faldskærms Klub = VAF). They visited Bodyflight Bedford to work on their individual flying skills by doing 1on1 training with Joey Jones, followed by an hour of 4way training with player coach Joey Jones and the competition.

Martin Søeby Mikkelsen hopes that the mini meet with teams from Denmark in Bedford will help to activate the Danish 4way community. Blue Motion and the Danish Divas will both be competing at the Danish Nationals in two weeks. He said that the ultimate goal for the Danish Divas is the World Meet in Dubai: "This was the first time they had a chance to see how they're doing. Now it's going to be interesting to see how they will do in the skies at the nationals."

Blue Motion competed in the A Class in May this year and won the DFU Cup in this category. Now they have been preparing themselves for the AAA Class competition at the national championships by doing indoor and outdoor training and a lot of creeping. Martin Søeby Mikkelsen expects Blue Motion to have a great debut in the AAA Class "if they keep up the pace from their very first tunnel meet".