posted Aug 30th, 2017 - The German Nationals 2017 took place at the same time when Belgium and Italy held their national championships.

There were no surprises at any of the three events, as the three national teams (NMP PCH HayaBusa, eX3MO, Airbus) defended their top positions successfully.

However, there is some motion going on in Italy and Germany, while the Belgian 4-way world champions have no opposition yet in their homeland.

The battle for the top spot in Italy was a thriller, as the NSL News reported yesterday, and Amnesya is seriously challenging eX3MO's 4-way dominance.

Airbus was once again driving the 4-way title home with an 8-point advantage after the 10-round meet in Germany. AtomiX YUU was still closer than ever to the German national team of the past years, and there does not seem to be an end to the ongoing challenge.

AtomiX finished with a new 17.7 team record average at the second meet with new team member Mark Zimmermann, who has moved up from a 12+ average last year with his former team to the 17.7 level after 200 training jumps with AtomiX.

German Nationals 2017		1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	Total	Avg
Rank	AAA/Open Class	P,D,3,16	13,14,9	F,11,N,2	J,7,5	17,14,M	B,8,18	22,Q,O,20	K,10,15	E,1,G,6	A,L,19,21	Total	Avg
1	Airbus FSZ Saar	19	16	20	22	20	17	17	15	18	20	184	18.4
2	AtomiX YUU Skydive	18	15	18	22	18	16	17	15	18	19	176	17.6
3	NeVa FSZ SAAR	16	12	16	17	17	12	12	12	14	15	143	14.3
3	Dark Energy	16	13	13	17	15	13	15	12	15	14	143	14.3
5	SKYNAMITE	16	12	15	17	15	13	13	13	14	14	142	14.2
6	Skyfall Illertissen	15	11	12	17	13	12	13	11	13	14	131	13.1
7	Paranodon Eyjafjallajökull	11	11	14	15	12	12	14	12	13	13	127	12.7
8	Skyweed	14	9	13	14	15	12	12	10	13	13	125	12.5
9	Wolf Pack	14	11	12	11	12	12	12	10	14	14	122	12.2
10	FlashFour - Soest	8	10	12	12	12	9	12	10	13	10	108	10.8
11	HorschD FSZ SAAR	10	7	11	10	9	9	7	7	12	12	94	9.4
12	4 xmpl	8	8	11	8	10	8	9	7	8	10	87	8.7
13	Jump	8	8	10	9	6	8	10	6	7	9	81	8.1

AtomiX YUU had never tied any of the Airbus scores for a meet round since the team project started in 2013.

This year, the new lineup matched the Airbus numbers in four of the ten rounds and was even close to win a round here or there.

The closest battle in Germany took place behind the two top teams, even though the three teams, separated by only one point, were not in direct competition for the bronze medals in the AAA/Open category.

Dark Energy had Belgian competitor Luc Vereecken in the lineup who could not win a German 4-way medal.

Skynamite and Skyfall Illertissen had their own leaderboard and set of medals, as the German federation separates 4-way Open and 4-way Women competition the same way as FAI/IPC does it at world cups and world meets.

Skynamite won the duel and the tickets to Australia 2018 and finished one point behind the 3rd place on the Open Class leaderboard.

NeVa FSZ Saar turned out to be the official winner of the bronze medals with the highest 10-round average in team history. The 14.3 is identical with the finishing number at the FAI World Cup 2017, which was over after only four rounds.

NeVa, Airbus and AtomiX had all tested their performances in Saarlouis a few weeks earlier, while Germany did not have a team in 4-way Women at the world cup.

Airbus was far ahead of AtomiX (80 - 66) by then after only four rounds, and the outcome at the national championships must have been surprising on both sides.

However, Airbus and Skynamite won and are qualified to compete for Germany at the FAI World Championship of Formation Skydiving 2018 in Australia.

The German 8-way teams are in the middle of their national championships, and the five Airbus members are winning once again their second title for the Airbus 8-way team.

The question is whether the team is motivated to do double duties, which was a painful experience at the FAI Mondial 2016...