posted Mar 23rd, 2009 - The Australian Nationals 2009 went by almost unnoticed, as last week's main NSL News focus was on the FSL Shamrock Showdown 2009. However, the scores and meet information from Australia were finally complete and available, and the story of the winning team this year is quite interesting.

First of all, the Australian 4-way champion and national team of the last five years, Airtite, did not compete at the championship and lost the title. Airtite (Simon Disciassio, Jeremy Langford, Gary Nemirovsky, Rob Tasic) had still represented Australia at the World Meet 2008 in France where the team finished in 11th place with a 16.3 average.

However, two former Airtite members still competed for this year's downunder 4-way title, but they were in different lineups. Gary Nemirovsky took the Center Inside slot for the new Australian 4-way champion, Rotor Out, while Simon Disciassio ended up in 2nd place with team Black.

The most interesting story though came with another member of the Rotor Up lineup. Center Outside Jens Goennemann is not Australian at all. He trained and competed with the German national team EADS in the past years, first in 4-way and then in 8-way.

Jens Goennemann is a professional business manager for EADS, which is known as a global leader in aerospace, defence and related services. In 2008, EADS generated revenues of € 43.3 billion and employed a workforce of about 118,000. The Group includes Airbus as the leading manufacturer of commercial aircraft.

The German competitor used his management skills and the financial support by his employer successfully to form the first EADS 4-way lineup and guide it to the dominating top position in Germany. EADS (Jens Goennemann, Thomas "Spieli" Spielvogel, Goran Meyer, Olaf Biedermann) finished in 5th place at the World Meet 2004 in Croatia with an 18.3 average and then in 7th place at the World Meet 2006 in Germany with an 18.8 average.

Jens Goennemann and his EADS 4-way lineup decided to focus on 8-way at the end of the 2006 season and defeated the Remscheid 8-way powerhouse already in 2007. The EADS 8-way lineup then continued Remscheid's battle with Italy's national 8-way team for two years and could not beat Ex3mo, as well. The Italians beat EADS by eight points at the World Cup 2007 (15.8 - 15.0) and by 12 points after seven rounds (18.0 - 16.3) at the World Meet 2008 in France.

Jens Goennemann was not competing any longer for the EADS 8-way team in 2008. EADS had already sent him on a new business mission to Australia at the end of the 2007 season, and Henning Stumpp had filled his slot. However, the 8-way average of 16.3 in 2008 and the 4-way average of 18.8 in 2006 were both the highest averages that any German teams have ever posted at World Championships of Formation Skydiving, and Jens Goennemann left Germany with these records in the German archives.

He did not really plan to launch a new team project in Australia and ended up in the Rotor Up lineup without much training and planning at all. In fact, Rotor Up completed a total of 42 training jumps in the weeks immediately proceeding the competition, as team videographer Darren Griggs reported.

This training effort, supported by the solid and experienced center work by Gary Nemirovsky (Center Inside) and Jens Goennemann (Center Outside), was still good enough to dominate the Australian Nationals 2009. Rotor Out lost the first round to Black, corrected this already clearly in Round 2 and then never looked back while winning each of the remaining jumps in the 10-round meet.

Rotor Out even managed to finally wipe out the long standing Australian 26-point record for a single round, set by Entity in 1998. Steph Bensley, Jens Goennemann, Gary Nemirovsky, Darren Pearson and Darren Griggs on camera posted a 27-pointer for the 5-random sequence in Round 3 setting a new Australian record for a single round in the national history. The record jump can be viewed by clicking here.

It will be interesting to see what Rotor Out will do from here on. Jens Goennemann did not compete at the World Meet 2008 in France, which would give him eligibility for an Australian slot at the World Meet 2010 in Russia.

There is the possibility that the new Australian 4-way champion could take on the German national 4-way team of 2010. The NSL News has no information yet of any Rotor Out plans for 2009 or 2010.

Last not least, the team in 3rd place of the 4-way competition, Stix & Stonz, had Fiona McEachern in its lineup. She is the Chair of IPC's Formation Skydiving Committee and already competed with the national 8-way team from downunder at the World Meet 2008 in France. Congratulations for the new 4-way medal, Fiona.