posted Nov 18th, 2015 - The toughest battle of the AAA/Open Class competition at the USPA Nationals 2015 took place behind the Top 4 full-time teams and the unofficial US amateur champion 2015, Hg XP.

Prestige Worldwide (6th) and Verve XP (9th) were separated by only six points, while EOS and Dallas 350 also finished within this margin. The special leaderboard of these four teams shows that the highscores for the ten rounds were almost equally shared.

Prestige Worldwide was actually trying to stay close to their 8-way team mates in Hg XP, while Dallas was mainly involved in the Texas showdown with Spaceland Lite. However, they ended up in this exciting 4-team battle for the 6th place.

Verve XP started as an indoor team in 2014 and competed at the Paraclete XP Indoor Championship 2014 and the World Challenge 2014.

Original members Christine Freiherr, Andre van Heerden and Joseph Wood had Jane McGuire in the lineup at the two indoor events. Laurent Beaudouin then filled Joseph Wood's slot at the USPA Nationals 2014.

Andre van Heerden, Christine Freiherr and Joseph Wood came back with player coach Kirk Verner at the Paraclete XP Indoor Championship 2015 and followed up with the same lineup at the USPA Nationals 2015.

The 15.9 average beats last year's 13.2 significantly and made the battle for 6th place an exciting foursome.

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	AAA Class	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
6	Prestige Worldwide	18	16	27	15	16	16	14	16	14	13	165	16.5
7	EOS	17	14	26	16	15	15	15	17	13	13	161	16.1
8	Dallas 350	16	16	23	15	17	17	15	16	14	11	160	16.0
9	Verve XP	15	13	27	14	17	16	16	16	13	12	159	15.9

Prestige Worldwide was a new team name for a lineup with very well-known 4-way competitors, while the fourth team in this special race for the 6th place brought a few new names into this year's AAA/Open Class playing field.

EOS had player coach Mark Kirkby in the lineup who beat his original Arizona Airspeed team mate Kirk Verner by two points after ten rounds. Amanda Lampton, Nadja Lonnroth and Alex Swindle completed the lineup, with Matt Gries on camera in Eloy.

Amanda Lampton had competed with Perris Wicked (14.8) in the Open Class competition of the USPA Nationals 2012.

She also traveled to Dubai with the US 4-way Women team that won the silver medals (14.3) and $10,000 at the 5th Dubai International Parachuting Championship in December 2014. The 16.1 average with EOS is her new personal best.

Nadja Lonnroth is one of the original Tigers members (2006 - 2008), Finland's national 4-way team of 2008 and 2014.

The Tigers finished in 16th place at the world meet in Maubeuge 2008 with a 14.5 average.

Mark Kirkby introduced the 4th EOS member, Alex Swindle, as the "shining star" of the year:

"He attended his first USPA Nationals last year, and averaged 8+ in the AA/Intermediate Class. This year he was in the AAA/Open Class with me and averaged 16.1 - so he is one to watch for sure!"

EOS had to compete as a guest team, as Nadja Lonnroth is still a Finnish citizen. However, it did not make a difference to neither the team nor coach Mark Kirkby:

"We competed with the principle of just learning as much as possible about 4-way and did not need to place officially in the competition." Results of the EOS effort were personal best scores for all members - except for Mark Kirkby, of course...