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Did You Know...

... that Gary Smith and Jérémie Rollett confirmed their switched coaching jobs?

Gary Smith with Qatar Falcons at the FAI World Cup 2015
posted Dec 14th, 2018 - The NSL News update on December 8th covered the 8-way competition at the Weembinamic 2018. The story concluded with the news that Jérémie Rollett was coaching the Qatar Falcons 8-way team at Weembi Lille.

It was not only the occasion of the event in France, near Jérémie Rollett's home in Paris, that connected the coach of the Qatar Tigers 4-way team with the Qatar Falcons. Jérémie Rollett and Falcons 8-way coach Gary Smith have switched jobs since the FAI World Meet 2018.

Both teams and their coaches are currently training at Skydive City in Florida, and the NSL News used the opportunity to meet with Jérémie Rollett and Gary Smith yesterday for a new NSL Live Talk.

Switching the jobs and responsibilities was not really very surprising for the two Qatar coaches. They said that they have discussed this option ever since they started working with Qatar's Formation Skydiving delegation. It did not happen earlier since both coaches have been very successful with their work. Gary Smith and the Qatar Falcons won the first FAI Formation Skydiving medals for their country with the 3rd place in 8-way at the FAI World Meet 2018, and Jérémie Rollett guided the Qatar Tigers to the 4th place in 4-way Open.

FAI World Meet 2018
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Total Avg
Rank 8-way Open 21,L,B,G 22,18,17 19,7,O J,16,12 10,A,D,15 Q,M,F,C,N H,20,P,13 6,14,11 E,2,5 4,1,3 Total Avg
1 Golden Knights US 24 21 18 24 19 -2 29 21 18 -1 17 33 224 22.4
2 Tanay RU 21 -1 21 17 22 -1 20 28 16 -1 18 18 28 -1 209 20.9
3 Qatar Falcons QA 19 16 15 18 -1 14 -1 21 16 14 -1 14 23 -1 170 17.0
4 MicroClim8 UK 17 15 12 14 -1 15 21 15 12 -2 13 18 -1 152 15.2

FAI World Meet 2018
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Total Avg
Rank 4-way Open 21,L,B,G 22,18,17 19,7,O J,16,12 10,A,D,15 Q,M,F,C,N H,20,P,13 6,14,11 E,2,5 4,1,3 Total Avg
1 NMP-PCH Hayabusa BE 32 21 27 -2 24 22 -3 62 -2 22 -2 20 -1 27 -1 22 279 27.9
2 Arizona Airspeed US 26 -5 21 27 -1 24 24 -1 60 -1 26 22 27 20 277 27.7
3 Aerodyne Realfly FR 29 -1 19 24 -2 23 24 52 -3 20 -3 17 -3 24 19 251 25.1
4 Qatar Tigers QA 24 -2 14 -1 24 -1 21 22 53 -4 21 -1 18 20 17 234 23.4
5 Echochamber SE 25 -1 16 21 -1 17 -2 20 -1 48 -4 14 -3 18 21 -1 15 -1 215 21.5
The new coaching jobs seem to make even more sense, despite the current success with their respective teams. Jérémie Rollett was even more successful as an 8-way competitor. He won FAI gold medals for France in 2006 and 2008 and then added 4-way gold in 2010.

He turned into coaching when he became the new French national coach after Jerome David retired with the French FS Sweep in 2010. Jérémie Rollett was in charge for the whole French Formation Skydiving delegation between 2011 and 2014.

He handed over the French national teams to his former team mate Mathieu Bernier in 2015 and continued with the Qatar Tigers.

Gary Smith won two 4-way world championship titles, the first one with DeLand Majik in 2004, followed by DeLand Fire in 2006. He became a professional coach after his active competition career and eventually guided NMP PCH HayaBusa to three consecutive world championship titles in 2014, 2016 and 2018.

He was also player coaching the Dutch national 8-way team M8trix until 2015 and met the Qatar Falcons 8-way team as opponents at a few meets. The Qatar Falcons eventually outscored M8trix at the team's last meet with Gary Smith and after he had started his new 8-way coaching job.

FAI World Cup 2015
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Total Avg
Rank 8-way Open 1,4,D E,3,L,G C,16,N,9 13,J,11 Q,2,A,14 K,7,8 P,18,21 15,12,F B,22,O,10 20,5,M Total Avg
1 Aerodyne Maubeuge  FR  28 30 23 18 18 17 18 26 19 18 215 21.5
2 Tanay  RU  24 24 19 17 17 15 14 20 15 15 180 18.0
3 Qatar Falcons  QA  17 19 15 12 13 13 12 15 13 14 143 14.3
4 M8trix  NL  20 17 15 12 11 11 13 17 12 11 139 13.9
5 Ex3energy  IT  11 10 12 9 8 9 11 11 10 8 99 9.9
6 Awkward Turtles  UK  7 4 5 6 3 6 5 2 4 4 46 4.6
Gary Smith with M8trix at the FAI World Cup 2015
Jérémie Rollett has been focusing exclusively on his 4-way coaching job with the Qatar Tigers since 2015 and finished in 5th place a year later at the FAI World Meet 2016. Then he guided them to the 4th place in Australia this year.

In the same time period, Gary Smith was working with the Qatar Falcons and NMP PCH HayaBusa both. He won 4-way gold with the Belgians in 2016 and 2018 and added the 8-way bronze medals with the Qatar team in Australia.

Both coaches have challenging tasks ahead of them after switching internally. Jérémie Rollett has to try turning the bronze medals into something even better. However, he has the 8-way gold medal experience to make it happen. Gary Smith has to make the next step with the Qatar Tigers, which would have to be a 4-way medal position in Tanay 2020.

Gary Smith could eventually run into a situation with a serious conflict of interest. The Belgian 4-way world champions would probably not be too happy if their coach was working with one of the toughest opponents. The Qatar Tigers are not seriously threatening NMP PCH HayaBusa yet. However, it will be Gary Smith's goal to bring them exactly to that point. No matter what - tighter competition will be even more exciting for the teams and for the audience...

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