posted May 27th, 2005 - The NSL News story on May 23 reported that there is a flaw in the penalty rules of the current version of USPA's Competition Manual. The last NSL Newsletter alerted teams and competitors in the U.S.A. about the problem, which was detected at last weekend's season opener of the Mideast Skydiving League.

The NSL headquarters communicated the situation with USPA's Chair of the Competition Committee, Marylou Laughlin, as well. USPA responded to the serious problem very quickly. Laughlin did not spend much time trying to find out what happened, she rather took action to fix the problem.

Within a few days, she contacted all members of the current USPA Competition Committee and asked for approval to fix the according section in the Competition Manual. Next step was to present the issue to USPA's Executive Committee, which had to approve the correction of the language in the manual, as well.

Competition Committee and Executive Committee members helped Laughlin to initiate the moves for the necessary adjustments as soon as possible with their quick responses. Then the language needed to be changed, and Laughlin sent this task to USPA's Director of Competition, Larry Bagley.

In the meantime, the download options for the Competition Manual at the USPA website were removed to control the damage. USPA's Director of Communications, Kevin Gibson, was in charge for this action. Laughlin mentioned on the phone that she hopes to have the corrected version of the Competition Manual available and back on the website tonight.

Fortunately, there was not too much damage, thanks to the alertness of Mideast Skydiving League Director Randy Connell and his event judge, Deanne Hesterberg. Only the scores of the AAA Class teams at earlier meets this year would be questionable. However, judges at the SSL Valentine's Meet 2005 in February were already aware of the IPC rule change. Penalties at the FSL Shamrock Showdown 2005 were also given according to the new IPC rules. The AAA Class teams in Georgia and Perris on the same weekend received only 1-point penalties, as well.

The April meets of the Southwest and Florida Skydiving League were judged correctly, and the May meets of the Colorado and Northern Plains Skydiving League did not have AAA Class participation. Problems were caused last weekend at the MESL meet, however, any damage was avoided by fixing the problem right on competition site.

Laughlin still mentioned that there is a good chance for some problems in Texas. The Texas Skydiving League launched its 2005 season last weekend (check NSL News story on May 26). The TSL meet story mentions that "the judges for the day were FAI rated judge Madolyn Murdock and USPA nationally rated judge Christy Hitchens".

Murdock is a member of the USPA Competition Committee and also of the Executive Committee. She realized the problem of the AAA Class scores in Texas last weekend when she helped Laughlin with her approvals to respond quickly to the issue. The NSL headquarters will get in touch with TSL Director Ryan Smith and bring the critical AAA Class scores to his attention.

The Georgia and Southwest Skydiving League compete this upcoming weekend, and both leagues and their judges are familiar with the current penalty rules. The USPA Competition Manual will be corrected very shortly, and all AAA Class teams in the U.S.A. will enjoy the reduced penalties for the rest of the 2005 season.