posted Aug 11th, 2018 - The NSL News update from the French Nationals 2018 on 8 August 2018 included the meet videos of the Aerodyne Weembi Girls in the first four rounds. Team videographer Michel Laynaud now provided the video footage of the missing six rounds, and the audience has the opportunity to watch all ten rounds of the best 4-way Women team in the history of the sport.

Michel Laynaud was back on camera again after Julie Fournier had helped out one more time at the Coupe de France meet at the end of June. He had filmed the 24.0 record average at the May meet, as the NSL News had reported on 1 June.

The 23.5 average last week at the national championships matches the 10-round average at the Shamrock Showdown 2018. It was the third time this year that the French national team in 4-way Women scored significantly higher than any other all-female lineup in the history of this category.

It is no news that the Aerodyne Weembi Girls have oriented themselves and their performance level on the 4-way Open Class leaderboards when they competed at FAI/IPC events that separate the all-female lineups from the teams that sign up for the 4-way Open Class category. This year, there have only been three teams with higher 10-round meet averages: Arizona Airspeed, SDC Rhythm XP and Aerodyne Realfly. NMP PCH HayaBusa have not posted any outdoor scores so far.

French Nationals 2018		1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	Total	Avg
Rank	4-way Open	E,G,10,2	9,Q,14	5,19,C	12,16,A	15,1,17	20,L,3	13,F,22	11,N,D,O	M,7,8	P,4,H,21	Total	Avg
1	Aerodyne Realfly	20	28	23	23	19	20	20	31	24	27	235	23.5
2	Aerodyne Weembi Girls	22	29	25	21	21	21	17	29	24	26	235	23.5
3	Espoir Saumur Weembi	16	21	16	16	15	15	15	20	18	21	173	17.3
4	Espoir Weembi Lille	16	20	16	15	13	13	15	21	18	19	166	16.6
5	Odin Parachute System	14	18	14	16	8	14	11	18	19	15	147	14.7
6	Airbivores Annecy Pamiers	12	14	11	9	8	9	9	12	14	15	113	11.3
7	ExponenCiel ASPU Maubeuge	8	14	6	5	7	8	9	11	11	11	90	9.0
8	Flyponots	8	11	0	8	6	6	4	10	12	9	74	7.4

The combined average of the three best outdoor meets (23.7) would have placed the Aerodyne Weembi Girls 4th at the last world meet, the FAI Mondial 2016, where they finished 2nd in 4-way Women behind the Golden Knights and 7th on the combined 4-way leaderboard.

The situation at the upcoming FAI World Meet will probably demonstrate even more clearly how well the best female 4-way competitors keep up with the Open Class teams. There is a very good chance that only the Open Class medal contenders (NMP PCH HayaBusa, Arizona Airspeed, Aerodyne Realfly) place higher on a combined leaderboard, and the French national team in 4-way Open can hardly fend off the 4-way Women team.

Black Cat from Russia will only compete in 8-way for Tanay, and the Qatar Tigers were behind the Aerodyne Weembi Girls at the Shamrock Showdown. The 4th place, even the 3rd place on the combined 4-way leaderboard, seems to be in reach for the French national team in 4-way Women, and the FAI gold medals for France in this category are not even questioned by anybody.

The Aerodyne Weembi Girls have performed all 22 blocks and 16 random formations under meet conditions and in different combinations in the 30 rounds that added up to the 23.7 average, together with Aerodyne Realfly who have a 24.6 average after the same 30 rounds.

French Nationals 2018		1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	Total	Avg
Rank	AAA Class	E,G,10,2	9,Q,14	5,19,C	12,16,A	15,1,17	20,L,3	13,F,22	11,N,D,O	M,7,8	P,4,H,21	Total	Avg
1	Aerodyne Weembi Girls	22	29	25	21	21	21	17	29	24	26	235	23.5
Coupe de France May 2018		1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	Total	Avg
Rank	AAA Class	J,C,O,16	21,E,A,8	3,13,D	Q,N,9,2	M,B,12,K	4,11,5	G,6,H,L	17,1,18	19,P,7	10,14,15	Total	Avg
1	Aerodyne Weembi Girls	32	22	19	33	28	19	25	19	26	17	240	24.0
Shamrock Showdown 2018		1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	Total	Avg
Rank	AAA Class	B,J,17,20	M,10,O,3	Q,22,2	A,D,P,F,16	N,12,14	15,9,C	K,4,G,E	21,1,13	7,6,11	H,5,19	Total	Avg
1	Aerodyne Weembi Girls	26	23	21	33	15	26	27	19	22	23	235	23.5

The historic performance level of the Aerodyne Weembi Girls has impressed on the recent leaderboards with an interesting timing.

Mark Szulmayer, Chair of IPC's Formation Skydiving Committee, has been collecting feedback from the Formation Skydiving competition community for an evaluation of the current format. One of the topics is related to the 4-way Women category, which was added to the FAI/IPC events in 2001, as he briefly explained:

"One debate that continues is whether we need a separate female class. We have seen women competing successfully in open teams for many years, so one side of the debate is that there should only be the one open class at world level. Alternatively, it does appear that the female class is attracting competitors and keeping women in a sport that continues to be male dominated with females only constituting about 15% of the skydiving population worldwide."

The feedback from the Formation Skydiving competition community will be used at a Strategy Workshop that the extended IPC bureau plans to hold for officials and guests prior to the next IPC Plenary meeting in Lille.