posted Sep 27th, 2000 - The NSL News mentioned with the most recent NSL Live Talk on March 30th (Gary Smith) that the current situation in the skydiving world will offer an opportunity to feed information into the SKYLEAGUE.COM website that cannot be found anywhere else:

"NSL Live Talk has been a regular part of SKYLEAGUE.COM coverage for a long time. It began as soon as the website was launched in its current form. In fact, interviews with teams, competitors, VIPs and officials in the sport were recorded even much earlier. They were not archived as video files at the beginning and appeared in writing on the website and in print media."

The first written interview for the NSL News audience was posted on 27 September 2000, even though regular news updates began in December 1998, the first year of the National Skydiving League. The first season of the Florida Skydiving League was completed in the winter of 1997/1998 and the first NSL Championship was held at Skydive DeLand in November 1998.

The DeLand Norgies were training frequently in DeLand and had won their first set of FAI bronze medals in 1999. The NSL News met with the Norgies' tail Carl-Erik Tuv on 27 September 2000 to discuss the situation before the upcoming USPA Nationals 2000. Carl-Erik Tuv is still training and competing randomly with the original DeLand Norgies lineup, and he has launched the FS2020 project in Norway, as the NSL News reported on March 16th. His daughter Christiane Sørfjord Tuv is a member of the project team Volare.

Did you know how the Norgies' tail, Carl-Erik Tuv, is forecasting the U.S. Nationals?

Carl-Erik Tuv is the tail position of the DeLand Norgies, the national 4-way team of Norway that won the bronze medal at the World Championship in 1999. The Norgies will compete at this year's U.S. Nationals as a guest team. The NSL News interviewed Tuv for his prediction of the competition that will begin this Saturday in Perris, California.

Tuv is 32 years of age, married with two children. He is a doctor in Norway and took a year off to pursue the gold medal in 4-way at the World Championship in 2001. Tuv has a total number of approximately 5,000 jumps, and began skydiving in the Norwegian army in 1987. He first competed with the Norwegian national 8-way team in 1994 - 1996. This team placed fourth at the World Cup in 1996.

He then became a member of the Norwegian 4-way team that placed 6th at the World Championship in 1997. At the World Cup in 1998, the Norgies won the bronze medal. Then they won another bronze medal at the World Meet in 1999. Now, the Norgies' goal is to win the World Championship in 2001. Between now and the World Meet in Spain in August 2001, Tuv will only train and work as a coach in DeLand. Here is his forecast for the U.S. Nationals 2000.

NSL: Carl-Erik, the Norgies have recently moved to DeLand for eight months to train for the World Meet. You have already spent a lot of time in DeLand. Do you already feel as though you have been Americanized?

CET: America has had its influence on me, no doubt. But I do feel that I am a Norwegian still.

NSL: Your whole family has also moved this time, as well. How do your wife and your children (10-year old Espen, 20-month old Christiane) feel about staying here during this time?

CET: It is all new and challenging in the beginning. Yvonne will still go back and forth to continue studying in Norway for her bachelor's degree. Espen is going to school in DeLand, and is adjusting to it. He also enjoys baseball. Christiane is going to day care, and she already has a few little friends from her earlier visit.

NSL: The Norgies will compete at the U.S. Nationals, along with France and the best U.S. teams. The best three teams of the last world meet will already compete again with each other. How important is this competition for the Norgies?

CET: We are just a guest team. But we are out there to win the competition, of course. Our preparation for this meet has not been as serious as for the big meets. We are more looking at the World Cup in November. This is like a warm-up meet for the World Cup. The U.S. Nationals are supposed to show us where we currently are and where we can improve. Last year, we went to the U.S. Nationals in Sebastian in September and had a terrible meet. We analyzed it, worked on it. Then we went to the World Meet a few weeks later to have our peak performance there. We hope that we will have less to improve this year.

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FAI World Meet 1999			1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	Total	Avg
Rank	4-way Open		9,24,A	O,M,2,Q	14,P,11	19,3,15	N,8,12	C,1,E,20	K,23,17	B,16,21	L,22,J,7	G,5,6	Total	Avg
1	Maubeuge	FR	23	23	18	19	18	24	21	21	21	20	208	20.8
2	Arizona Airspeed	US	23	24	19	16	17	26	19	19	20	19	202	20.2
3	DeLand Norgies	NO	21	23	16	17	16	23	20	19	20	16	191	19.1
4	Sebastian XL	UK	21	23	16	17	17	23	18	17	20	18	190	19.0
5	Russia	RU	22	20	13	16	16	17	18	17	18	15	172	17.2
6	Australia	AU	20	21	15	15	14	19	17	17	15	16	169	16.9
7	Daedalus	DE	18	18	13	13	14	18	15	14	16	16	155	15.5
8	Italy	IT	19	16	11	14	9	20	16	13	14	-	132	14.7
9	Japan	JP	15	18	11	12	12	15	15	14	14	-	126	14.0
10	Spain	ES	12	18	12	13	13	15	11	15	16	-	125	13.9
11	Hungary	HU	15	18	13	11	12	15	14	12	11	-	121	13.4
12	Belgium	BE	15	17	10	13	11	14	12	12	15	-	119	13.2
13	Denmark	DK	14	16	10	11	12	17	12	13	13	-	118	13.1
14	J5	ZA	14	15	11	11	12	14	11	13	-	-	101	12.6
15	Switzerland	CH	9	14	11	10	11	13	13	14	-	-	95	11.9
16	Netherlands	NL	12	15	6	11	11	10	10	14	-	-	89	11.1
17	Monkey Circus	AT	13	7	9	11	10	15	9	12	-	-	86	10.8
18	New Zealand	NZ	12	11	6	7	9	11	10	9	-	-	75	9.4
19	Canada	CA	11	12	7	9	7	11	7	5	-	-	69	8.6
20	Israel	IL	10	13	8	4	9	11	6	7	-	-	68	8.5
21	Portugal	PT	10	10	6	5	8	8	8	8	-	-	63	7.9
22	Slovakia	SK	7	9	7	5	8	8	9	9	-	-	62	7.8
23	Thailand	TH	9	5	0	5	6	3	8	4	-	-	40	5.0
24	Zimbabwe	ZW	5	5	4	1	2	5	3	4	-	-	29	3.6
25	Cyprus	CY	5	5	2	2	2	6	3	0	-	-	25	3.1

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NSL: After last year's World Meet, the Norgies had a head start by continuing with the same team squad, while France and Airspeed were facing personnel changes. After being 1.5 average behind France and U.S. last year, where are you expecting the Norgies to be at this time?

CET: I believe that we are pretty much at the same level. But at the U.S. Nationals, the U.S. teams may have a stronger performance since that's where they have to peak. We are expecting to give France and the U.S. a race for the gold medal anyway. After winning the bronze medal in 1999, the gold medal will be the only medal that we are charging for.

NSL: Let's look at the situation in the United States: there seem to be a few teams in contention for the one slot that will give them a ticket to next year's World Meet in Spain. Can you evaluate the situation for us?

CET: I have not put any money on any team at this time. If I would, Airspeed Vertical would give me the most confidence. I would weigh the chances for three teams with 50% on Vertical, 30% on FX and 20% on DeLand PD Blue.

NSL: You have trained side-by-side with PD Blue and FX in DeLand for a while this season. Did you get a chance to see their videos as the foundation for your guess?

CET: I have seen many of PD Blue's videos, and I made one skydive with FX. It was funny - we were in the same plane, and at 8,000 ft, FX's tail Dave Timko and myself decided to swap teams for this jump. Both teams agreed for the fun of it. Back to the main question: Airspeed Vertical has been the best team in the U.S. throughout the whole season, winning the Americas Cup meets in raw scores. FX is a very experienced team on top level competitions. PD Blue has a lot of competition experience, but not on the top level.

NSL: You have not mentioned the Golden Knights and Airspeed Zulu with world champion Kirk Verner as the leader yet. Are they not in serious contention?

CET: They are definitely, but they are the "dark horses" to me. Looking at the history in 8-way, the Golden Knights were the strongest team through the whole 1998 season. Then they lost the U.S. Nationals to Airspeed. The same thing can still happen in 4-way this year. The competition is close enough to give all five teams a chance to win. Each team needs to be on peak performance level though. Airspeed Vertical might have a higher range than the other teams, especially the Golden Knights, Zulu and PD Blue.

NSL: How do you see the latest scores of the meets where these contenders did not compete directly with each other? FX and PD Blue scored 22.0 average in Florida, while Vertical scored 20.7 in Arizona. Is it possible to compare these results?

CET: I don't think so. The draws are always so different for a six-round meet.

NSL: This season, PD Blue has competed at twelve meets, Airspeed Zulu at six meets, Vertical at five meets, the Golden Knights at four meets, FX at one meet. Do you think that the competition practice may be a factor in the final event?

CET: Yes. Vertical and PD Blue have an advantage, FX has a disadvantage on that behalf. Bjorn Borg (a famous Swedish tennis player) said 25 years ago: "If you do not compete enough, you are only a training player, not a real competitor. Your game will show it." This still counts.

NSL: How many competitions have the Norgies attended this season?

CET: We competed at six or seven competitons so far this year. The U.S. Nationals and the World Cup are still up and coming.

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USPA Nationals 2000			1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	Total	Avg
Rank	4-way Open		E,5,19	P,21,15	7,24,13	F,23,J,17	1,22,12	D,G,M,11	20,B,4	8,H,18	16,14,A	K,L,C,Q,O	Total	Avg
1	Airspeed Vertical	US	19	20	21	24	17	23	21	18	18	32	213	21.3
2	Perris FR Maubeuge	FR	21	22	21	22	17	24	17	17	18	29	208	20.8
3	FX	US	20	20	20	23	16	24	19	19	13	33	207	20.7
3	DeLand Norgies	NO	19	19	19	24	17	23	19	17	17	33	207	20.7
3	DeLand PD Blue	US	19	19	19	22	16	24	19	19	19	31	207	20.7
6	Airspeed Zulu	US	19	18	19	23	16	24	17	16	16	31	199	19.9
7	Golden Knights Gold	US	19	19	20	20	13	24	18	16	18	31	198	19.8
8	Elsinore Matrix	US	15	14	15	19	14	19	15	14	15	27	167	16.7
9	Skydive Udine Sinapsi	IT	17	17	17	14	15	15	12	14	14	21	156	15.6
10	Perris Energy	US	14	14	15	16	13	17	13	12	13	22	149	14.9
11	GKRC	US	10	12	9	9	10	13	11	9	10	13	106	10.6

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NSL: How many meets are you planning to attend in the 2001 season prior to the World Meet?

CET: We are planning to attend as many competitions as we can get. The number may be between five and ten after the World Cup. Since we are staying in Florida for the whole training season, there will be the chance to compete at some of the Florida Skydiving League events. If PD Blue or FX is winning the U.S. Nationals, we may have an ongoing competition with them in Florida.

NSL: Back to the U.S. Nationals... The competition will be as tough as ever in U.S. history, as it looks. How does this compare to the situation in Norway?

CET: You have to go far back in U.S. history to find a similar situation as this year, maybe as far as 1992. That's when Jack Jefferies and Dan BC had their own teams competing hard against each other. The Golden Knights were also a factor in 4-way in those days. After the legendary Airspeed was formed, there has not been a real competition in 4-way in the United States anymore. This year will be exciting for the teams and fun for people to watch a close race between five teams. We have only three serious teams in Norway. The Norgies have all the experience and the best funding. There is no competition for us. The other two teams are our "farm team", the Rookies, and an all-female team, called "Jentelaget" (Norwegian for "The Girl Team"). The Rookies are currently scoring 13.0 average. The girls are scoring 11.5 average.

NSL: Will these farm teams be the foundation for your successors?

CET: Yes, definitely. We are helping them as much as we can with technical knowledge. The association is supporting them to a certain extent, which is not very much, before they become the national team. Both teams will compete at the World Cup in Arizona this year. We try to give them already international experience as early as possible.

NSL: The U.S. Nationals will include ten rounds, beginning this Saturday. Can you give us a number for the expected scoring average of the winning team?

CET: A medium draw will probably see a 21.0 average level for the winning team.

NSL: Is this guess including the French national team Perris Maubeuge and the Deland Norgies?

CET: Yes.

NSL: Thank you, Carl-Erik.