posted Mar 15th, 2017 - It did not take too long until the answer to the Savolo question came. The Sun Path Products NSL News reported yesterday that South African 4-way competitor Andre van Heerden has joined Spaceland Lite for the 2017 season.

The same story mentioned that Andre van Heerden also competed for Savolo at the FAI Mondial 2014 and at the World Challenge 2016, while the South African national 4-way team was not registered for this year's indoor competition in Bedford.

The event host of the World Challenge provided the Sun Path Products NSL News with an updated list of teams just a few hours after the story was posted, and Savolo member Alex Jordaan confirmed at the same time that Savolo will compete once again in Bedford at the beginning of April.

In fact, the World Challenge 2017 is Sount Africa's qualification event for the FAI Indoor World Meet in Montreal later this year, and Savolo is planning to represent South Africa in Canada.

World Challenge 2017			1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	Total	Avg
Rank	AAA Class		TBD	TBD	TBD	TBD	TBD	TBD	TBD	TBD	TBD	TBD	Total	Avg
1	NMP PCH HayaBusa	BE	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
2	Weembi Lille	FR	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
3	RealFly-Sion	FR	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
4	French Weembi Girls	FR	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
5	SDC Rhythm XP	US	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
6	Gavroche Weembi	FR	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
7	Volition	UK	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
8	IFS-Moscow	RU	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
9	Amnesya Fly-In	IT	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
10	ACM	UK	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
11	Chimera	UK	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
12	NFTO	UK	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
13	Espoir Saumur Weembi	FR	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
14	Savolo	ZA	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
15	ISR FireFlash	BE	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
16	Tenanine	MR	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
17	Pro Team	FI	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
18	Flyzone Les Affranchise	FR	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
19	HF Flying Circus	CZ	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
20	Flyspot Sky4four	PL	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
21	JETMAX	BE	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
22	H4O	IE	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
23	Formihyrodynamitevisionx	UK	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
24	Equinox	LT	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
25	Corbas Coyotes JCM	FR	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
26	Antimatter	UK	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
27	Aladeen	HU	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
28	Poor 4Cast	UK	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
29	HF Skycentrum	CZ	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
30	Mental BloX	UK	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
31	Nova	SE	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
32	Eros	UK	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-

The lineup in Bedford is another new Savolo version, as Debbie Lamsley has joined NFTO and Bailey Edmunds will not be available for Savolo this time. Andre Van Heerden has no Spaceland Lite obligations on the World Challenge weekend and will make the trip to Bedford.

Alex Jordaan said that the last slot is being filled by Dave Sumter, who is a former South African Voodoo member, the country's national 4-way team for many years. Savolo will compete with this lineup at the World Challenge and then decide later who will eventually be in the lineup at the FAI events.

The latest update from Bedford added two more teams to the power rankings who might be in close competition to each other and to Savolo. The French B-Team, Espoir Saumur Weembi, is one of seven French AAA Class teams in Bedford and will battle with several other teams for a slot within the Top 10.

ISR FireFlash, the second half of NMP PCH HayaBusa's 8-way team, has also added the World Challenge to the meet agenda after competing at the French Indoor Nationals 2017 two weeks before Bedford.

The same seven French 4-way teams will be warmed up well for Bedford after their own national indoor championships. The updated power rankings are showing a very strong presence of French 4-way teams in the Top 10, after Gavroche Weembi signed up for the World Challenge, as well. Gavroche is coming to Bedford with the same lineup of 8-way world champions who posted the 26.4 average at the Wind Games 2017.

Former French national coach Jeremie Rollett, who has recently been coaching the Qatar Tigers, is also a 4-way world champion of 2010 and once again in the Gavroche lineup for the World Challenge. His three team mates of 2010 (Julien Degen, Mathieu and Guillaume Bernier) are trying to challenge NMP PCH HayaBusa with Weembi's signature lineup.

H4O brings a team from Ireland back to the World Challenge leaderboard. Conor King is new in the H4O lineup, while he is not new to 4-way competition at all. He was a member of IPC Vision, the Irish national 4-way team that posted a new Irish record average (9.8) at a World Championship of Formation Skydiving in Spain 2001, and then continued with Team Spirit through the FAI World Cup 2007.

The AAA Class leaderboard of the World Challenge 2017 currently features 32 teams from 15 different coutries.