posted Apr 11th, 2018 - The latest scores on the leaderboard were still generated at Twinwood Adventures in Bedford with a new World Challenge event that took place only on Sunday.

The World Challenge 2018 was the first time that host Paul Mayer added 8-way competition to the meet agenda, and all ten rounds were scheduled for Sunday. Four British teams, the Intrudairz from Hungary and the international lineup of the Jazz Dragons avoided the award party on Saturday evening as much as possible to be fit for the ten 8-way rounds on Sunday.

The small 8-way competition still offered a great combination of an exciting situation on the top of the leaderboard and a more casual approach of the pickup teams. In fact, the pickup team in 3rd place, Jazz Dragons, interfered quite seriously in the battle for the top spots that was supposed to be a 2-team affair between the reigning national outdoor champions of MicroClim8 and the Brit Chicks reunion lineup.

The Brit Chicks had posted their last scores in the NSL records at the national championships of 2014, two years after competing for Great Britain at the FAI Mondial 2012 in Dubai and then at the FAI World Cup 2013 in Banja Luka. MicroClim8 won the national championships the same year and competed for the UK delegation at the next world meets in 2014 and 2016.

World Challenge 2018			1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	Total	Avg
Rank	8-way Open		18,G,8	11,22,P	H,J,4,1	15,C,5	6,O,17	19,12,A	L,2,E,16	9,K,M,D	3,Q,N,13	10,B,21	Total	Avg
1	MicroClim8	UK	16	18	25	20	20	17	23	20	20	18	197	19.7
2	BritChicks	UK	16	18	21	17	20	16	17	17	15	19	176	17.6
3	Jazz Dragons	IN	15	17	20	16	20	15	15	18	21	16	173	17.3
4	Fuster Clucks	UK	6	9	11	12	11	11	8	12	10	10	100	10.0
5	Intrudairz	HU	9	4	11	7	9	9	9	6	11	5	80	8.0
6	Littleoctopi	UK	5	2	5	1	8	6	5	4	7	7	50	5.0

Ex-Presidents were MicroClim8's major opponent, when the Brit Chicks took a break, and even won the national 8-way title in 2015.

However, MicroClim8 was back in 1st place a year later and finished in 5th place at the FAI Mondial 2016 after a 4-point victory over Germany's Airbus team.

There was no serious domestic competition for MicroClim8 in 2017, and the team will represent Great Britain at the FAI World Meet 2018 in Australia. However, the comeback of the Brit Chicks, with four original and four new members in Bedford, put pressure on the British national 8-way team, as the scores for the first two rounds last weekend are showing.

Both teams attended their first indoor meets in 8-way and were well prepared for the first 8-way Sunday at the World Challenge.

MicroClim8 gave away only the very last round after picking up the pace when the Brit Chicks tied the first two rounds. The all-female team also had to look over their shoulder while pressuring the British national 8-way team for the top spot.

Jazz Dragons was a joint venture of two 4-way teams who had competed in Bedford on Friday and Saturday. The international Tenanine lineup, who compete for Mauretania at international events, had finished with a new team record average (24.6) just outside of the Top 10 (11th) last weekend.

Their 8-way partners of Jazz Republic from South Africa made the cut after Round 8, as well, and then missed the judging of Round 10 in 15th place together with Tenanine. All 4-way teams performed the ten rounds, while only 50% of the teams received their scoring numbers for Round 9, and then for Round 10 after the second cut.

Jazz Dragons, with team members from four different countries (South Africa, France, Italy, Mauretania), compensated themselves for the missing Round 10 score in 4-way with ten additional scoring numbers in 8-way. In fact, the battle that the Jazz Dragons then put up with the Brit Chicks was even much more exciting than the one for the 8-way top spot. The pickup 8-way team even won Round 9 and tied another highscore,

There was a wealth of 8-way experience available for Jazz Dragons that Martial Ferre and Marco Arrigo, both very busy and regular Veloce 8-way coaches, gladly shared with the team. The other international pickup team was the first Hungarian 8-way lineup of Intrudairz, a combination of AAA Class 4-way team Aladeen and AA Class team Intrudair.