posted Feb 3rd, 2016 - Thunder ISR has been known for years as the best unofficial amateur team in the world. They have owned this title since the team members (Wesley Claessens - Point, Paul Hofstee - Outside Center, Sven Ibens - Inside Center, Jacco Van Eerden - Tail) have normal jobs and spend their own vacation time and resources for training and competition.

The unofficial title can be misleading or confusing, as the scoring numbers that Thunder is posting on a regular basis has settled the team in the Top 10 teams of the skydiving world, including the fully sponsored professional competitors and full-time skydivers.

Thunder has been competing at indoor and outdoor meets around the world, always trying to find and meet the other top 4-way teams. This has become increasingly difficult, as Thunder is not a national 4-way team and cannot compete at FAI/IPC events.

Clash of Champions 2015			1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	Total	Avg
Rank	AAA Class		J,13,8	K,20,5	9,21,19	C,3,6	7,O,15	A,18,1	2,H,P,D	16,L,11	E,N,10,B	12,Q,F,22	Total	Avg
1	NMP-PCH Hayabusa	BE	26	32	30	28	33	29	41	28	37	29	313	31.3
3	Weembi Lille	FR	27	28	30	29	33	27	35	28	30	28	295	29.5
5	Qatar Tigers	QA	24	25	28	27	28	25	33	26	30	23	269	26.9
8	Thunder ISR	BE	22	23	27	27	31	27	34	25	28	24	268	26.8
9	Black Cat	RU	22	26	27	26	29	26	33	26	24	23	262	26.2

Wind Games 2016			1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	Total	Avg
Rank	AAA Class		7,H,15	12,A,22	O,10,E,G	P,2,D,19	5,21,14	C,4,J,11	L,M,18,6	20,3,13	17,9,1	16,N,8	Total	Avg
1	NMP PCH Hayabusa	BE	32	25	33	32	27	32	33	24	28	26	292	29.2
2	Weembi Lille	FR	33	16	30	24	24	29	28	21	25	26	256	25.6
3	Black Cat	RU	29	23	28	25	25	26	27	21	27	24	255	25.5
4	Thunder ISR	BE	26	20	30	27	22	26	28	19	26	23	247	24.7
5	Qatar Tigers	QA	29	21	28	26	21	22	27	20	26	24	244	24.4

Once Thunder ISR was accepted as a guest team at the World Cup 2012. Other than that, the team has been limited to events not sanctioned by FAI/IPC. Thunder is now competing for Belgium, which causes the problem of a very big obstacle being in the way to a World Meet. NMP PCH Hayabusa is the Belgian national 4-way team.

It is not unusual that a country has more than one world class team. SDC Rhythm XP has been in a similar situation for a while.

The U.S. team could attend a World Cup, where four teams may compete for a country's delegation. Thunder has not been eligible yet to compete for Belgium after the latest trouble of the Thund8rbirds 8-way team at the FAI World Cup 2015.

Despite the eligibility issues, Thunder has found a way to meet the other top teams by attending high-profile indoor competitions and was once again a part of the Top 10 battles at the Clash of Champions 2015 and the Wind Games 2016.

NMP PCH Hayabusa, Arizona Airspeed and Weembi Lille were too far away for Thunder ISR at the Clash of Champions. However, Thunder was within striking distance of the teams behind the current 4-way world leaders.

The Wind Games brought five of the top teams in Dubai back together on the same leaderboard, and three of them continued with a similar battle that they had at the Clash of Champions in December 2015. Thunder ISR was one of them, and the opponents were the national 4-way teams from Russia (Black Cat) and Qatar (Tigers).

The ranking order was completely reversed between the three world class teams in Empuriabrava, while the competition was once again very close. Qatar Tigers, Black Cat and Thunder were separated by seven points in Dubai and by 11 points just a month later. Thunder member Paul Hofstee said that his team has begun to pick up the pace and lost more points due to penalties in Spain (7) compared to Dubai (3). The same three teams may continue their battle at the World Challenge 2016 in April...