posted Oct 6th, 2016 - The Sun Path Products NSL News covered the first part of the battle for a spot in the world's Top 10 at the FAI Mondial 2016 with the Savolo story on September 16th.

The South African national 4-way team was the winner of the 3-team battle with Final Fire from Austria and Ex3mo from Italy and took the 9th place by one single point. Final Fire outscored Ex3mo by four points and finished in 10th place.

It was the first time since 1993 that Austria placed in the Top 10 after being a regular between 1985 and 1993 (5 - 3 - 10 - 9 - 10). Amadeus, the Austrian national team at the world meet in Brazil 1987, even won a set of bronze medals for Austria after rotating five team members through the 10-round meet in Foz do Iguaçu.

FAI Mondial 2016			1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	Total	Avg
Rank	4-way Open		12,A,16	18,15,O	1,F,E,C	17,B,14	10,2,20	21,11,G	J,5,19	L,M,K,7	D,8,4	3,13,Q	Total	Avg
9	Savolo	ZA	15	15(-1)	25	19	14	15	16(-1)	28	17	15	179	17.9
10	Final Fire	AT	16	15(-1)	25	17	12(-1)	16	18(-1)	29	17	13(-1)	178	17.8
11	Ex3mo	IT	18	15(-1)	21(-1)	18	13(-1)	14(-2)	19	25	17	14(-2)	174	17.4

Savolo placed in the Top 10 for South Africa for the first time since 1997, when DeLand Equanimity, with Solly Williams and Gary Smith in the lineup, won bronze medals in Turkey. Voodoo missed the Top 10 with an 11th place in Dubai 2012 and Savolo with a 12th place in Prostejov 2014.

Italy was in the Top 10 between 1985 and 1991 (7 - 4 - 5 - 3) and won the first set of bronze medals in 1991 before dropping out of the Top 10 between 1993 and 1997. The 1999 lineup (Daniele Villa, Roberto Valli, Alessandro Betti, Antonella Chiarin, with Igor Galvan on camera) brought the team back to the Top 10 with an 8th place.

Sinapsi PD's first lineup of 2001 (Francesco Tegoni, Livio Piccolo, Luca Marchioro, Marco Arrigo, with Luca Poretti on camera) made it to the finals with a 6th place. Sinapsi's 2006 lineup (Pete Allum, Arianna de Benedetti, Luca Marchioro, Livio Piccolo, with Luca Poretti on camera) eventually won the second set of bronze medals for Italy, and the country's national teams have not missed the Top 10 ever since - except this year.

Sinapsi's original member Marco Arrigo was back in the Ex3mo lineup 15 years later at the Mondial 2016. He had Fabio Lorenzetti, Mirko Righi and Placido Udine in his lineup, with Massimo Fiorini on camera.

The battle for the 10th place between Savolo, Final Fire and Ex3mo was even closer than the final leaderboard is showing. The three teams went almost exactly on the same pace level (182 - 181 - 181) and the penalties made the difference. Savolo won with the cleanest performance, while Final Fire had the highest number of points before penalties. Ex3mo was tied with Savolo in 10th place before penalties and ended up in 11th place with the highest number of point deductions.

Savolo won the battle with Final Fire literally in the last minute. The Austrians went into Round 10 with a 1-point advantage, and Savolo turned the table by winning the last round by two points, after benefitting from one Austrian penalty. It was a real showdown...