posted Jul 30th, 2018 - The NSL News continues with 8-way coverage, even though there will be a geographical transition from Germany to Australia. This transition is not only based on the fact that the German skydiving federation is now purchasing tickets for Airbus München to Gold Coast down under.

The German 8-way team will still post even more current scores at the national championships at the end of August before traveling to Australia. This time, Airbus has to finish only with a 12.5 average to qualify for next year's international events, and this benchmark is not even a challenge any longer after the 13.8 last weekend.

The new NSL-TV videos feature the ten qualification rounds and a special jump for Linda Koeb, who made her 1000th skydive during the last training on Friday before the qualification. Team videographer Erik Lorenz said that she only was not caked because the team was still in the middle of the training. The video also shows the live competition draw with FAI Judge Karla Cole and coach Marco Arrigo in a quite casual atmosphere.

The 8-way transition from Germany to Australia comes also with the fact that the Australian national 8-way team JYR8 are preparing themselves in the meantime for the visit of the other best 8-way teams in the world, and Germany was one of the closest opponents at the last confrontation, the FAI Mondial 2016 at Skydive Chicago.

FAI Mondial 2016			1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	Total	Avg
Rank	8-way Open		12,A,16	18,15,O	1,F,E,C	17,B,14	10,2,20	21,11,G	J,5,19	L,M,K,7	D,8,4	3,13,Q	Total	Avg
1	Golden Knights	US	31	25	26	22	20	22	19	26	24	24	239	23.9
2	France	FR	22	20	25	18	16	19	17	23	19	20	199	19.9
3	Tanay	RU	23	19	25	17	14	16	16	21	20	19	190	19.0
4	Qatar Falcons	QA	19	16	20	15	7	10	13	16	15	15	146	14.6
5	Microclim8	UK	15	14	16	14	11	13	13	14	13	17	140	14.0
6	Airbus München	DE	16	15	17	11	11	13	12	14	12	15	136	13.6
7	Australia	AU	13	13	14	12	9	13	12	15	10	14	125	12.5
8	Divergence	CA	11	10	9	11	8	10	8	10	11	11	99	9.9
9	Brazil	BR	11	8	10	9	5	9	9	11	8	13	93	9.3

Australia is one of the few countries that have attended all world meets with an 8-way team since 1985, except for one time in Menzelinsk 2010, as the NSL News reported on 21 December 2016.

At the time of the last world meet, the 8-way teams did not even know that Australia would host this year's event. The Australian skydiving federation had presented a bid to the FAI/IPC, and Rob Libeau, National Development Manager of the Australian Parachute Federation, was at Skydive Chicago as a visitor and observer.

The Australian 8-way team JYR8 became the home team when Gold Coast was chosen as the host for this year's event. JYR8 is a combination of some of the most experienced Formation Skydiving competitors in Australia, and Airbus München and MicroClim8 both could face more opposition this year compared to the FAI Mondial 2016.

In fact, the eight team members together have accumulated competition experience from more than 25 world meets, with several members competing at their 6th world meet this year.

Rob Thompson and Richard Strickland competed for Australia with XLR8 in 1999, 2001 and 2003, then in 4-way with Rotor Out in 2014 and 2016 respectively. Gary Nemirovsky and Sas Di Sciascio competed for Australia in 4-way with Airtite in 2004, 2006 and 2008, then with Rotor Out in 2012 and 2014 respectively. They also rejoined to compete for the first time in 8-way with Innuendo in 2016.

Russell Blackman competed with the Next Gen 8-way team in Dubai 2012 and in Prostejov 2014, then with Innuendo in 2016. Ann Marie Jarzebowski competed for Sweden in 4-way Women in 1999 and 2001 and 15 years later for Australia in the same event at the FAI Mondial 2016. She will be doing double duties this year as a member of Australia's team in 4-way Women.

Tanya Cale was in Australia's 4-way Women lineup in 2008 and 2012. She has different double duties than Ann Marie Jarzebowski this year, as she was selected for replacing 4-way Open Class team Rotor Out's Steph Bensley who stepped aside after this year's national championship.

Andrew Barker competed in 8-way with Next Gen and Russell Blackman in 2008, and Pete Anderson on camera will have his first world meet experience after 28 years in the sport.

FAI World Meet 1999			1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	Total	Avg
Rank	8-way Open		15,7,13	B,12,E,3	20,K,11	23,H,J	F,2,8	D,6,P,22	N,A,M,G,16	21,L,14	10,C,4	1,9,O	Total	Avg
1	Arizona Airspeed	US	22	25	20	20	16	22	25	19	21	21	211	21.1
2	Russia	RU	20	23	20	23	14	19	26	19	22	23	209	20.9
3	Maubeuge	FR	15	21	22	23	13	21	26	19	20	20	200	20.0
4	Australia	AU	15	18	12	10	12	16	20	14	14	16	147	14.7
5	Japan	JP	12	12	11	11	11	12	14	13	10	13	119	11.9
6	Germany	DE	13	13	12	12	9	10	15	10	11	10	115	11.5
7	Great Britain	UK	11	10	10	9	9	10	14	12	10	-	95	10.6
8	Spain	ES	4	12	11	7	9	11	14	11	10	-	89	9.9
9	Belgium	BE	10	9	7	9	8	10	12	11	10	-	86	9.6
10	South Africa	ZA	7	7	10	9	5	12	9	10	11	-	80	8.9
11	Flying Dutchmen	NL	7	9	9	8	6	9	13	11	7	-	79	8.8
12	Austria	AT	7	7	5	6	5	7	9	10	-	-	56	7.0
13	Italy	IT	5	5	7	9	3	8	8	7	-	-	52	6.5

It seems like Australia has recruited the strongest 8-way lineup possible, and Airbus München and MicroClim8 both will have to expect the Aussies on a different scoring level than in 2016. The 12.9 average at the national championship early this year was only a starting point.

The 2018 lineup came together late in 2017 for the sole purpose of putting Australia's best effort into representing the country on home turf. Last time in 1999, Australia placed 4th in 8-way with a 14.7 average, which is still standing as the highest result in Australian 8-way history. There is no doubt that the 14.7 average of 1999 is in the back of this lineup's mind, and the 4th place is in reach again this year.

Coach Pete Allum got the 2018 lineup on the way, and Craig Girard prepared JYR8 for the early nationals, where the team had no competition.

JYR8 has scheduled eight to nine more hours of indoor training and 150 training jumps leading up to the world meet, and they will all be under the direct supervision of Craig Girard, who is also coaching the Russian 8-way team from Tanay. There is no doubt that the 12.5 average of 2016 will be left far behind. The only question is how close JYR8 will get to the standing national 8-way record average of 1999. JYR8 members Rob Thompson and Richard Strickland own the record and will try to break it 19 years later...