posted Sep 15th, 2014 - The 8-way teams compete for the first time in three categories at the USPA Nationals 2014, the same way as the 4-way teams are organized (Open - Advanced - Intermediate). 4-way Women had officially a separate leaderboard, but no team registered for this category, and the Golden Knights competed in the Open Class.

USPA and IPC have no gender separation in 8-way, and Perris Moxie is at least one all-female team who will also compete together with the boys. USPA's new Advanced Class category in 8-way has not brought new teams to the national championships yet. In fact, participation is down in all Formation Skydiving 4-way and 8-way events.

56 teams competed in traditional 4-way, and the United Kingdom has once again hosted the biggest 4-way competition this year with 75 teams. 36 UK teams competed in AAA and AA, which are the identical categories (Open/Advanced and Intermediate Class) at the USPA Nationals.

The 8-way teams at the USPA Nationals volunteer for their three categories the same way as the 4-way teams do. Five teams have signed up for the Open Class competition, where the old and new 8-way world champions, the Golden Knights, will set the pace.

The US Army team had no serious competition at the FAI World Championship of Formation Skydiving 2014, and it will not be much different at the USPA Nationals. However, Paraclete XP8 and Arizona Airspeed both might be closer to the Golden Knights than Barkli (Russia) and Venturi (France) were in Prostejov.

With the lack of serious competition, the Golden Knights have mostly their own pursuit of 8-way excellence in mind. They finished with almost exactly the same averages at the two meets this year, the Paraclete XP Outdoor Championship 2014 (21.5) and then the world meet (21.6) a few weeks ago.

The USPA Nationals offer the Golden Knights the last opportunity this year to get back to the scoring level of 2012 (22.9 at the world meet) and 2013 (22.3 at the nationals).

The Golden Knights also missed a golden opportunity in Prostejov to eventually post a new 8-way world record for a single round, which is still the 31-pointer of 1997. The Sun Path Products NSL News reported on 28 August 2014 what happened in Round 4 at the world meet, and the story on 9 September 2014 followed up with the videos.

It does not happen very often that the competition draw offers opportunities for world records. However, the audience may want to keep the eyes on the sequence in Round 8 (15,B,J,F) which has the potential for a high enough scoring number in 8-way. Judge Eric Heinsheimer will once again be on site to see if he will continue to own the 1997 world record or not. First of all, the weather has to get better at Skydive Chicago...