posted Oct 29th, 2015 - It happens every year at the USPA Nationals that the drop zone becomes significantly quieter and slower as soon as the 4-way competition is over, and then again after the completion of 8-way. It's the same this year at the USPA Nationals 2015.

Solly Williams, Gary Smith and Chris Talbert wrapped up the live coverage of the Sun Path Products NSL News in the Coaches Corner just between the completion of Round 10 in 8-way and the award ceremony for the USPA medal winners in the 4-way and 8-way events.

Solly Williams was jumping in 8-way and coaching after coming back from his trip with the Golden Knights 4-way Women team to the 1st FAI World Indoor Skydiving Championships. Gary Smith brought the Qatar Falcons as a guest team to the USPA Nationals, and Chris Talbert was representing Sun Path Products at the event.

Solly Williams and Gary Smith are both involved in the race for medals at next year's Mondial 2016 at Skydive Chicago, and they are on different sides this time. They were team mates with South Africa's 4-way bronze medal winner Equanimity in 1997 and then 4-way world champions with DeLand Majik in 2004.

Solly Williams' goal is a set of gold medals as the coach of the Golden Knights for the US delegation, while Gary Smith will try to stop the US pursuit of FS gold medals with NMP-PCH Hayabusa, the reigning 4-way world champions.

Chris Talbert, a former Golden Knights member and Airspeed 8-way world champion of 2004, picked up the topic of a potential US Sweep in Formation Skydiving next year and congratulated the US Army's 8-way team for the new 32-pointer world record, first of all.

USPA Nationals 2015		Rd. 1	Rd. 2	Rd. 3	Rd. 4	Rd. 5	Rd. 6	Rd. 7	Rd. 8	Rd. 9	Rd. 10	Total	Avg
Rank	4-way Open	J,H,2,8	6,D,18	F,9,L,O	1,17,E	K,19,N,P	3,7,5	4,A,B,12	11,16,M	15,Q,22	20,14,10	Total	Avg
1	Arizona Airspeed	27	24	43	23	26	25	25	23	21	19	256	25.6
Rank	4-way Women	J,H,2,8	6,D,18	F,9,L,O	1,17,E	K,19,N,P	3,7,5	4,A,B,12	11,16,M	15,Q,22	20,14,10	Total	Avg
3	Golden Knights	23	19	37	22	24	19	23	21	19	17	224	22.4
Rank	4-way VFS	B,9,11	K.C.D.17	N,L,M.F.J	I,2,12	8.10,7	14,5,1	16,15,13	H,G,A,6	-	-	Total	Avg
1	SDC Core	23	18	24	25	22	19	14	20	-	-	165	20.6
Rank	8-way Open	N,E,D,16	G,F,Q,C,13	8,B,A,3	L,10,1	22,J,K,14	21,9,M	18,O,12	4,7,11	20,19,2	H,6,15	Total	Avg
1	Golden Knights	32	25	22	27	23	21	21	23	17	26	237	23.7

The leaderboard of the new US delegation in Formation Skydiving is showing the results of the teams this week in Eloy. There is no doubt that four sets of gold medals are in reach for Arizona Airspeed, Golden Knights in 4-way Women and 8-way, SDC Core.

Gary Smith was watching the Airspeed performance carefully and knows that NMP-PCH Hayabusa has to be on peak performance level to defend the gold medals successfully. The French coaches (Mathieu Bernier, Marin Ferre) and the Russian teams will work hard on getting their own teams to the US scoring and performance level.

Canadian Evolution member Martin Lemay joined the conversation later to provide insights of the situation in 4-way VFS. His team finished in 3rd places in 4-way Open and 4-way VFS in Prostejov 2014. He knows that SDC Core has a good head start over Transfert (France) and his own team. All teams have less than one year to defend or challenge the gold medal positions...