posted Mar 14th, 2018 - The opening ceremony with the competition draw for the Shamrock Showdown 2018 is only a day away, and the visiting teams are still in full training swing in perfect weather conditions.

Performance Designs is hosting the opening ceremony on Thursday evening with free food and beverages at the company's new office facilities next to the factory.

In the meantime, other teams are getting ready for the next upcoming indoor competitions, the French Indoor Nationals and the World Challenge. All of the teams in DeLand are also attending indoor meets and still focus mainly on outdoor events.

However, there are also 4-way teams who attend only indoor meets, and some of them cannot jump from planes due to their ages. They are the 4-way competitors who are eligible for the 4-way junior category.

Several countries have their 4-way junior programs, and World Challenge host Paul Mayer started his Recruitz project with two 4-way teams before the 2017 event. The oldest team member was 12 years of age and the youngest one 9 when they competed for the first time at the World Challenge 2017.

World Challenge 2017			1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	Total	Avg
Rank	Rookie		D,G,M	L,H,K	B,N,C	J,F,E	O,P,Q	A,E,M	A,C,O	Q,K,B	F,J,L	D,N,H	Total	Avg
1	Bahrain	BH	25	24	24	21	24	32	23	23	33	23	252	25.2
2	Omega4way	PL	21	21	26	28	25	30	19	27	31	18	246	24.6
3	Aeropotam's	BE	15	19	21	29	21	26	23	18	29	18	219	21.9
4	ACT One	BE	21	15	22	25	23	22	19	19	26	12	204	20.4
5	Janas	IT	14	15	15	19	19	19	16	18	18	15	168	16.8
6	VR-UNiQ	IE	8	9	8	14	12	13	11	13	13	8	109	10.9
7	3CAAD	UK	10	9	11	13	10	12	10	10	14	7	106	10.6
8	HF Junior Blue	CZ	10	6	11	14	10	13	10	10	11	9	104	10.4
9	Recruitz 1	UK	9	10	8	11	9	6	8	8	13	7	89	8.9
10	CJ Rookies	DK	6	3	6	13	5	6	5	8	12	2	66	6.6
11	Recruitz 2	UK	5	5	4	4	5	5	6	6	5	5	50	5.0

It was another after-school club project as an introduction for kids to the world of indoor skydiving that Paul Mayer established at Twinwoods Adventure in January 2017. He had previously given local students the opportunity to develop their TV production skills with a school project. The Recruitz were the first and only 4-way youth program in Great Britain and generated the two 4-way teams, Recruitz Ice and Recruitz Fire. It was also a serious eye-opening to the participating parents.

Both teams competed in the Rookie Class last year and finished at and close to the bottom of the leaderboard, just behind the only other 4-way junior team in the Rookie Class from the Czech Republic, HF Junior Blue.

The performance and scoring level will most likely be completely different this year. The Recruitz have trained with coaches Katie Woods and Jay Richardson. They gave themselves specific team names and are expected to finish with averages significantly higher compared to the World Challenge 2017 and the Revenge in October last year. Katie Woods has previous experiences with 4-way junior coaching, as she was also working with the youngsters in the sport at SkyVenture Montreal in Canada.

Revenge 2017			1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	Total	Avg
Rank	Rookie		M,J,F	E,C,K	O,D,Q	L,A,G	P,B,N	H,G,Q	D,C,P	F,M,B	O,L,N	K,J,A	Total	Avg
1	VR-UNiQ	IE	27	16	15	13	15	16	10	28	15	15	170	17.0
2	Recruitz 1	UK	29	13	17	12	14	13	10	32	11	14	165	16.5
3	Flying Icicles	UK	25	7	14	11	15	13	17	31	11	9	153	15.3
4	Strong & Unstable	UK	22	13	11	11	11	15	11	29	10	10	143	14.3
5	T-Bex	UK	18	8	9	6	12	10	8	14	7	7	99	9.9
6	Losers	UK	17	5	9	5	6	6	6	23	4	0	81	8.1
7	Recruitz 2	UK	14	4	7	4	8	5	4	12	7	4	69	6.9
8	Bumblenies	UK	11	9	5	7	6	4	4	8	4	8	66	6.6

Recruitz Ice have in fact moved up into the A Class after the second Rookie Class competition where they doubled their meet average. Only 4-way senior team VR-UNiQ from Ireland finished ahead of Ice and was barely able to fend off the 4-way juniors.

Both teams will have their re-match in the A Class this year, as the Irish team has made the same move up into the same category. The 4-way juniors surely have their eyes on their 2017 opponent who attended the same two meets as the Recruitz.

Recruitz Fire is back in the Rookie Class, also expected on a significantly higher performance level. They will meet the 4-way senior MAD Team from Poland in this category, who also have one year in the Rookie Class behind them, with four meets on their home turf. Only one of the four competitions was a 10-round meet.

The MAD Team leave their home tunnel behind and travel to their first wind tunnel competition in foreign air, which is home turf for Recruitz Fire at the same time. MAD Team has scored on a much higher level last year; however, the current scoring numbers of the 4-way juniors are unknown and could be a surprise...

World Challenge 2018			1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	Total	Avg
Rank	A Class Power Ranking		TBD	TBD	TBD	TBD	TBD	TBD	TBD	TBD	TBD	TBD	TBD	Total	Avg
1	Omega4way	PL	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
2	Aeropotam's	BE	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
3	One Shot	IT	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
4	Oman Wolf	OM	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
5	VR UniQ	IE	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
6	Recruitz Ice	UK	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
7	The Flying Penguins	RO	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
7	Nebula	UK	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
7	4eigners	IT	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
Rank	Rookie Class Power Ranking		TBD	TBD	TBD	TBD	TBD	TBD	TBD	TBD	TBD	TBD	TBD	Total	Avg
1	MAD Team	PL	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
2	Recruitz Fire	UK	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
3	Ninja Turtles	DK	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
3	Annetastic	NO	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
3	Bumblebex	UK	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-