posted Apr 11th, 2019 - The NSL News mentioned several times that the World Challenge is now officially the British Indoor Nationals at the same time. The story on April 6th introduced the two national champions of 2019, NFTO in 4-way Women and Chimera in 4-way Open.

NFTO was actually once again the highest-scoring British 4-way team in Bedford. The 4-way Women team had outscored all other British 4-way teams at the UK Nationals 2018 and then finished with a higher meet average than the British 4-way Open Class team, Satori XL, at the FAI World Meet 2018, where all teams in 4-way Open and 4-way Women performed the same ten sequences and posted their scores on two different leaderboards.

The World Challenge was the third consecutive time that NFTO finished higher and better than any other British 4-way teams.

NFTO was already qualified as the British national 4-way team in 4-way Women for the upcoming FAI Indoor World Meet 2019, after winning the internal British qualification at the World Challenge 2018. However, ACM Weembi and Chimera both had scored and placed higher at the same event last year.

World Challenge 2019			1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	Total	Avg
Rank	AAA Class		P,H,Q,5	19,16,E	L,3,2	B,A,22,D	J,14,8	11,M,G,1	15,21,18	7,O,4	C,N,K,13	20,6,F	Total	Avg
1	NMP-PCH Hayabusa	BE	52	32	28	39	29	32	28	34	42	31	347	34.7
2	Arizona Airspeed	US	48	30	27	37	27	31	25	33	36	28	322	32.2
3	IFS-Moscow	RU	44	29	26	33	27	29	23	33	34	31	309	30.9
4	Qatar Tigers	QA	44	29	26	35	24	29	24	31	32	31	305	30.5
5	SDC Rhythm XP	US	46	28	24	32	25	29	24	31	35	27	301	30.1
6	Airheads	CH	44	28	22	36	24	27	19	29	33	26	288	28.8
7	Weembi Unicorns	FR	43	28	23	32	23	28	19	28	33	26	283	28.3
8	ISR FireFlash	BE	40	26	24	33	24	25	19	25	28	26	270	27.0
9	NFTO	UK	35	25	24	29	24	25	20	27	30	24	263	26.3
10	Odin Parachute Systems	FR	35	28	21	29	22	25	20	25	29	25	259	25.9
10	Chimera	UK	36	24	21	27	23	27	21	25	29	26	259	25.9
12	ACM Weembi	UK	38	22	24	28	21	24	21	25	29	26	258	25.8
13	Gavroche Weembi	FR	38	27	23	26	21	25	14	27	28	23	252	25.2
14	Tenanine	MR	37	25	22	22	20	24	19	26	29	22	246	24.6
15	FlySpot Sky4Four	PL	36	19	18	26	20	22	19	25	21	21	227	22.7
16	Eros	UK	27	21	22	24	19	23	17	24	27	21	225	22.5
17	Jazz Republic	ZA	29	22	18	23	19	20	18	24	23	22	218	21.8
18	Falco	BE	22	20	17	19	20	20	17	24	26	19	204	20.4
19	Blackjack	FI	24	20	17	23	19	19	15	21	22	18	198	19.8
20	Pajama Pumas	UK	27	21	16	21	19	19	16	21	20	17	197	19.7
21	Tempo	FI	26	18	18	23	18	19	15	21	20	18	196	19.6
22	Aladeen	HU	28	21	19	16	16	19	13	19	18	20	189	18.9
23	Alakran	ES	26	18	12	18	17	21	17	23	18	18	188	18.8
24	FlyPonots	FR	26	19	17	21	16	18	10	18	18	18	181	18.1
25	Nefertit	UK	24	18	16	18	15	16	13	20	17	16	173	17.3
26	Windobona Angels	ES	20	16	14	18	16	17	15	21	17	18	172	17.2
27	Ayro	BE	16	18	15	18	17	15	14	19	19	17	168	16.8
28	Koloncok	HU	21	16	13	19	14	16	15	19	18	16	167	16.7
29	Stardust	BE	21	15	12	17	16	16	11	18	17	13	156	15.6
30	Nova	CH	21	14	12	16	13	13	11	17	19	16	152	15.2
31	Barak	ES	25	19	17	21	16	19	14	19	0	0	150	15.0
32	Wood Fella’s	UK	17	13	10	16	13	13	11	17	19	13	142	14.2
33	Draconis	UK	16	13	12	13	12	15	10	15	13	15	134	13.4
34	Free Burds	IE	16	10	11	11	13	12	11	15	15	13	127	12.7

NFTO - Chimera - ACM Weembi at the World Challenge 2019

ACM Weembi and NFTO will both compete for the British delegation at Weembi Lille, while this year's British World Challenge 4-way Open Class winner Chimera have to wait another year for the next FAI event. In fact, it will be the FAI Indoor World Cup in 2020, where four British teams will be eligible to compete.

Next year's 4-way Open Class winner at the World Challenge will then compete for Great Britain at the FAI Indoor World Meet 2021.

However, Chimera are the national indoor champions of 2019, while ACM Weembi will try to finish with a higher meet average than the last British team at the FAI Indoor World Meet 2017 (26.1) in Montreal. It will be difficult to place better than Satori XL, who finished tied with Echochamber from Sweden in 6th place.

It will be different for NFTO, who will be in the medal rankings on the 4-way Women leaderboard. The only open question is whether the British national team in 4-way Women will even be in contention for gold medals or not. NFTO seems to be in great form and has a very busy training agenda at the competition site. The first NSL-TV video clip from Weembi Lille includes parts of a training session on Wednesday.

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The battle for the British 4-way Open Class top spot could not have been much more exciting. Chimera had worked out a 1-point lead after the six rounds of the first day, gaining momentum after a slow start. This 1-point lead was not touched until the meet was over. Both teams tied their scores of all following rounds, and Round 10 was a serious showdown, which ACM Weembi had to win to have a chance.

It was even more dramatic earlier in this duel. The first round on Saturday morning (Round 7) brought a very rude awakening for ACM Weembi. There was a 13 on the leaderboard, and ACM was all of a sudden nine points behind Chimera instead of trying to eliminate the 1-point deficit.

The judging video is showing that one of the ACM team members is losing the balance while setting up for the entry into the flying chamber, and he is touching the net. The team resets and then ties the Chimera score.

However, the judges started the working time as soon as there was the connection with the net, according to the World Challenge rules. ACM eventually got the points back, as the FAI rules don't punish this situation, as long as the feet are not touching the net. The 1-point difference still lasted towards the very end...