posted Oct 29th, 2022 - The top of the 8-way leaderboard looked exactly the same as it did in 4-way Open. The winning team, Paraclete XP8, did not allow any other team to get close. In fact, the 41-point difference to the Qatar Falcons was even larger than the 33 points that Arizona Airspeed was ahead of NMP PCH HayaBusa.

Until the FAI Outdoor World Meet 1999, the first places in 4-way Open and 8-way Open would have been defined as a completed FS Sweep. The U.S. delegations of 1985, 19995 and 1997 accomplished the 1st places in both events. Then the 4-way Women event was added to the FAI/ISC format in 2001, and the U.S. delegation of 2004 (DeLand Majik - 4-way Open, Deland Synchronicity - 4-way Women, Arizona Airspeed - 8-way Open) did it again.

Eventually, 4-way VFS was added to the FAI/ISC events, as well, and only France has ever completed the 4-event FS Sweep ever since in 2010. The United States came very close twice by winning three events, first in 2016, then last week at Skydive Arizona.

NMP PCH HayaBusa were in the way of the U.S. Sweep in 2016, and NFTO and France did not allow XPG4 to complete the potential new sweep. NFTO won by 16 points over the U.S. team, 11 points over France.

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FAI Outdoor World Meet 2022			1		2		3		4		5		6		7		8		9		10		Total	Avg
Rank	8-way Open		20,16,B		P,D,21,13		17,K,11		E,A,19,22		2,9,M		C,14,F,12		3,6,18		4,10,1		8,Q,O,H		5,7,J		Total	Avg
1	Paraclete XP8	US	25	-1	20		20	-1	18	-1	18		19	-1	23		26	-1	16	-2	20	-2	205	20.5
2	Qatar Falcons	QA	21	-1	14	-2	16	-1	17		16		15	-1	19	-1	20	-1	14	-1	12	-4	164	16.4
3	Airbus	DE	18		14		14		13		4	-1	12	-2	16		16		12		14		133	13.3
4	MicroClim8	UK	16		9	-2	12		10		11	-1	7	-3	15		16		11		12	-1	119	11.9
5	Mojo Annecy-Clermont	FR	15		10		11		10		11		10	-1	8	-5	13		9		10		107	10.7
Rank	4-way Open Top 4		20,16,B		P,D,21,13		17,K,11		E,A,19,22		2,9,M		C,14,F,12		3,6,18		4,10,1		8,Q,O,H		5,7,J		Total	Avg
1	Arizona Airspeed	US	21	-1	28		27		27		31		23		21		20		32		31		261	26.1
2	NMP-PCH Hayabusa	BE	20	-1	25	-2	21		23		28		20	-2	19		17		29		26		228	22.8
3	Qatar Tigers	QA	19	-2	23	-1	22	-1	21	-1	26		18		17	-1	17		28		28		219	21.9
4	France 4-way Open	FR	19		23	-1	22		23		27		20	-1	18		15	-1	20	-5	27	-1	214	21.4

History of Formation Skydiving Sweeps since 1985

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Arizona Airspeed stopped the drought of 4-way world championship titles last week on their home turf, while Paraclete XP8 added the 6th consecutive set of 8-way gold medals to the U.S. collection. Together, they accomplished the original FS Sweep in 4-way and 8-way, which are the two events with the longest tradition.

This original FS Sweep was accomplished in a very unique way, as well. It has never happened that the 4-way and 8-way national teams of the same country did not give away a single round. The U.S. teams dominated the 8-way competition a few times (Coors in 1985, Golden Knights in 2014 and 2016) the same way, while the 4-way Open Class teams never won or tied all rounds at a world meet.

Arizona Airspeed and Paraclete XP8 both did not even allow another team to tie one of their highscores in Eloy last week, and the winning margins are the highest in the history of Formation Skydiving competition since 1985, with one exception.

The Golden Knights won the 8-way competition 53 points ahead of Russia in 1997. It's hard to imagine that they still lost one round to Russia (Round 5: 16 - 17). NMP PCH HayaBusa might have been able to create a similar distance to SDC Rhythm XP at the FAI Tanay Mondial. However, they could not add to the 24-point lead when the meet was over after Round 6 due to the weather situation.

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Paraclete XP8 - Qatar Tigers at the FAI Outdoor World Meet 2022 - Video Footage Courtesy of FAI/ISC and OmniSkore!HD

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Medal-winning countries in Formation Skydiving 8-way competition since 1985

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The absence of the Russian 8-way team allowed another new country to win FAI medals for the first time at the FAI outdoor world meet, and Germany's Airbus 8-way lineup wrote this page of the history books in Eloy. They join Canada (1985), Italy (2008) and Qatar (2018, 2022) as the only countries with FAI 8-way medals next to the three 8-way powerhouses, United States, France, Russia.

The outdoor world meet last week was also the first time that France did not win an 8-way medal, even though there was actually a national team competing in Eloy (Mojo Annecy-Clermont). France only did not win 8-way medals in Australia 2018 after not sending an 8-way team down-under. It was the same situation for Russia in 2008 and last week.

Matt Davidson was a member of the Golden Knights 8-way team with the historic winning margin in 1997. As the team's alternate, he did not actively give away Round 5 to the Russian 8-way team and could not contribute to the 53-point winning margin.

He started his own collection of 8-way gold medals in the active lineup of the Golden Knights in 2012 and defended the 8-way title successfully with the U.S. Army team in 2014, 2016 and 2018. He now completed his own Decade of 8-way Excellence with his 5th gold medal in the active lineup. Only Craig Girard is ahead of him with six 8-way gold medals (1989, 1991, 1993, 1999, 2004, 2022).