posted Aug 29th, 2019 - The German 4-way and 8-way teams are now in the middle of their national championship, and a change in the 4-way hierarchy seems to happen.

AtomiX has been challenging different Airbus lineups for the top spot in 4-way Open for several years, and the 2019 championship is bringing the change, at least after Round 7. Airbus still have three more rounds to eliminate the 7-point deficit, and chances are little that this could happen.

AtomiX has been training and competing with the same lineup since 2017, and the consistency, together with strong support from the Oceanside skydiving center in California, now pays back with a solid performance on the 19+ average level.

Airbus, on the other hand, has a completely new lineup, as the NSL News explained on March 29th. Thomas Mack is the only returning team member of the lineup that competed for Germany at the FAI World Meet 2018. He even needed coach Solly Williams for the German championship this weekend to have a complete and competitive lineup. In fact, it is quite impressive that Airbus 2019 are performing not far from last year's scoring level and are still within reach of AtomiX. However, it is very unlikely that the top ranking could change in the last three rounds.

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German Nationals 2019		1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	Total	Avg
Rank	4-way Open	E,G,M,2	B,4,1	9,K,L,O	13,15,14	22,16,3	21,6,D	5,J,12	P,17,7	10,H,C,11	8,F,19	N,18,20	Total	Avg
1	Oceanside AtomiX	26	19	26	15	15	17	19	-	-	-	-	137	19.6
2	Airbus	22	18	28	15	14	15	18	-	-	-	-	130	18.6
3	Dark Energy	18	14	20	11	13	16	14	-	-	-	-	106	15.1
4	Bardarbunga 2.0	20	14	22	13	8	11	14	-	-	-	-	102	14.6
5	Skynamite	18	14	17	11	11	14	12	-	-	-	-	97	13.9
6	NeVa FSZ Saar	19	14	15	10	11	13	13	-	-	-	-	95	13.6
7	HorschD FSZ Saar	18	12	14	10	10	12	10	-	-	-	-	86	12.3
8	Join Up	13	13	15	11	7	12	10	-	-	-	-	81	11.6
9	Airgrips	10	9	13	5	7	10	8	-	-	-	-	62	8.9
10	4Motion	10	9	13	8	7	8	3	-	-	-	-	58	8.3

4-way teams at the German Nationals 2019

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The situation is different behind the two top teams where a battle for the bronze medals is taking place between two lineups with highly experienced German 4-way and 8-way competitors.

Dark Energy finished tied in 3rd place at the German Nationals 2017 and was alone in 3rd place a year later, right ahead of Bardarbunga's 2018 lineup. Bardarbunga was actually leading by six points last year and had to forfeit the scores for Round 10 to finish the 8-way competition. All Bardarbunga members are also training and competing with the Airbus 8-way team, which has priority over the 4-way event.

Olaf Biedermann and Airbus 4-way member Alexander Prendinger are joining the four Bardarbunga members for the Airbus 8-way team, which is completed by Stefan Knoch and Linda Koeb.

Bardarbunga's 2.0 lineup, this time also with 8-way team mate Stefan Knoch instead of Olaf Biedermann, lost the battle with Dark Energy last year due to the lack of scoring points for Round 10. This year, it is video trouble that keeps the team behind the 3rd place. Round 5 alone was a 5-point loss after the exit, and Bardarbunga has three more rounds to catch up with Dark Energy.

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German Nationals 2019			1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	Total	Avg
Rank	8-way Open		E,G,M,2	B,4,1	9,K,L,O	13,15,14	22,16,3	21,6,D	5,J,,12	P,17,7	10,H,C,11	8,F,19	N,18,20	Total	Avg
1	Qatar Falcons	QA	16	24	16	14	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	70	17.5
2	Airbus 8-way Illertissen	DE	14	18	14	13	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	59	14.8
3	Veloce QRF	IN	12	17	14	11	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	54	13.5
4	Coriolis	DE	6	9	8	7	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	30	7.5
5	Luftschl8	DE	7	8	7	5	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	27	6.8
6	MeightO Meissendorf	DE	5	7	6	6	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	24	6.0

8-way teams at the German Nationals 2019

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Dark Energy has Airbus 8-way coach Marco Arrigo in the lineup, after Luc Verstrepen was competing for the team in 2017 and 2018. Marco Arrigo also has to guide the German 8-way team to the 12.9 average that the German skydiving federation has set as the qualification level for the next FAI World Meet in Tanay 2020.

Neither the Airbus 8-way team nor AtomiX seem to have any trouble with the required scoring average, which is 17.5 in 4-way Open. The Airbus 8-way team has good company on the leaderboard, where the Qatar Falcons make the pace as a guest team. Martial Ferre's Veloce QRF 8-way team is also trying to put some pressure on Airbus from behind. Both teams know each other from the Weembinamic 2018 where Veloce QRF competed with the international signature lineup. This time, Martial Ferre has only the three German members available (Petra Baerenfaenger, Uwe Soppa, Henning Stumpp) and added two French 8-way competitors (Nikos Pavlidis, Jean-Pierre Roussanidès). Marco Arrigo and Charles Rommel complete this QRF lineup.

Only the German national team in 4-way Women, Skynamite, who competed for Germany in Australia 2018, is struggling with the qualification average for Tanay 2020. The team's 15.4 average in Australia would have been more than enough to beat the 14.1 that the German federation is asking for.

The new Skynamite, with Airbus 8-way member Linda Koeb in the lineup for Janine Tillenburg, is standing at 13.9 after Round 7 and has some work to do...