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Did You Know...

... that Echochamber will focus on outdoor competition until the FAI Mondial Tanay 2020?

Echochamber with Niklas Hemlin at the Wind Games 2020
posted Apr 30th, 2020 - The NSL Live Talk series of online interviews continues with two members of Echochamber, Sweden's national indoor and outdoor 4-way champions and national team. Mattias Nord and Ulf Liljenbäck took the time to connect with the NSL News and provide an update from their homes in the Scandinavian country.

Sweden is considered the country that applied the most casual rules and restrictions during the corona virus crisis. However, skydiving centers and wind tunnels have been closed, as well, and Echochamber have been on a hold as most of the Formation Skydiving teams in the world.

Echochamber was formed in 2016, and Ulf Liljenbäck is one of the original team members, together with Johan Edvall and Rikard Rodensjö. Martin Bäcklin completed the original lineup.

Mattias Nord was Echochamber's coach when the team project was launched. The original lineup trained and competed together at indoor and outdoor events between February 2016 and April 2018, before Martin Bäcklin gave up his outdoor slot and reduced his slot exclusively to indoor training and competition. Coach Mattias Nord then took his outdoor slot throughout the 2018 outdoor season, including the FAI World Meet 2018 in Australia. Martin Bäcklin was back for the next indoor winter season (2018/2019) and then retired completely after posting the three highest meet averages (27.7 - 28.0 - 27.4) in Echochamber history.


Recorded on 30 April 2020
In the meantime, Echochamber had also begun to work with an external coach. Arizona Airspeed member Niklas Hemlin is originally from Sweden and knows the team well. He and Mattias Nord then worked together to bring Echochamber to a performance level that is close to the
FAI medal range. In fact, Echochamber has been aiming openly at the bronze medal position at the FAI Mondial Tanay 2020.

The recent cancellation and rescheduling of the 4-way world championship is bringing the same change of plans to Echochamber as to all other teams in the world, who have now more than another year to get ready for the FAI Mondial Tanay 2020 in August 2021.

Ulf Liljenbäck and Mattias Nord said that Echochamber will give outdoor training and competition the higher priority, although there is also the indoor world championship scheduled for April 2021. As an amateur team, they see realistic chances for a medal position only if they focus mainly on one event only.

Ulf Liljenbäck was very much on top of the corona virus situation in Sweden. He works as a sign language interpreter and goes live on TV with the Swedish government authorities for daily press conferences about Covid-19. He said that the countdown to the live TV show reminds him on a competition exit from a plane or an entry into a flying chamber.


FAI World Meet 1997
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Total Avg
Rank 4-way Open 13,Q,D,9 5,K,F,12 1,14,22 H,M,11,7 A,E,3,G 15,18,3 20,L,23 O,19,4 17,10,J 6,C,21 Total Avg
1 Arizona Airspeed  US  26 20 18 23 27 15 20 16 21 24 210 21.0
2 France  FR  25 19 17 22 25 16 20 21 20 21 206 20.6
3 DeLand Equanimity  ZA  25 20 16 20 20 15 17 20 21 19 193 19.3
4 Russia  RU  24 18 17 17 23 14 12 19 17 19 180 18.0
5 Sebastian XL  UK  24 17 14 21 19 13 16 19 15 18 176 17.6
6 DeLand Norgies  NO  20 14 12 18 20 12 14 17 16 18 161 16.1
7 Switzerland  CH  21 15 13 17 18 13 14 16 16 16 159 15.9
8 Australia  AU  17 17 14 17 19 10 14 17 17 16 158 15.8
9 Spain  ES  21 16 13 13 19 13 14 16 18 14 157 15.7
10 Daedalus  DE  19 14 13 17 20 12 12 16 15 17 155 15.5
11 Velox  SE  19 11 12 16 18 11 13 17 16 - 133 14.8
12 Japan  JP  19 13 11 15 19 11 11 17 14 - 130 14.4
13 Italy  IT  19 11 11 15 18 11 12 14 12 - 123 13.7
14 Monkey Circus  AT  19 13 11 8 16 11 14 17 13 - 122 13.6
14 Finland  FI  19 12 13 13 16 12 10 16 11 - 122 13.6
16 Belgium  BE  18 13 12 14 14 10 13 14 11 - 119 13.2
17 Hungary  HU  15 12 11 14 17 9 10 14 15 - 117 13.0
18 Canada  CA  18 12 12 10 15 9 7 15 13 - 111 12.3
19 Netherlands  NL  17 11 10 9 15 9 12 12 13 - 108 12.0
20 Croatia  HR  17 11 10 11 15 9 9 9 - - 91 11.4
21 Brazil  BR  14 8 11 14 11 9 9 13 - - 89 11.1
22 Luxemburg  LU  12 10 10 11 11 8 10 13 - - 85 10.6
23 Mexico  MX  13 9 9 11 12 8 10 12 - - 84 10.5
24 ProDytter  DK  15 12 0 10 13 6 11 12 - - 79 9.9
25 Czech Republic  CZ  14 6 9 7 12 9 9 12 - - 78 9.8
26 New Zealand  NZ  12 8 8 9 11 8 8 10 - - 74 9.3
27 Lithuania  LT  10 4 6 9 9 5 9 9 - - 61 7.6
28 Slovakia  SK  8 9 7 5 10 6 7 8 - - 60 7.5
29 Ireland  IE  7 7 9 7 5 7 8 9 - - 59 7.4
30 Israel  IL  10 8 9 4 9 3 5 9 - - 57 7.1
31 Portugal  PT  12 4 7 3 9 6 8 7 - - 56 7.0
32 Poland  PL  6 6 3 3 9 6 2 7 - - 42 5.3
33 China  CN  8 2 5 5 3 2 6 4 - - 35 4.4
34 Venezuela  VE  6 0 5 6 4 1 6 6 - - 34 4.3
35 Turkey  TR  6 7 3 4 0 2 6 3 - - 31 3.9
36 Indonesia  ID  0 5 7 7 2 0 4 2 - - 27 3.4
37 Cyprus  CY  2 0 0 1 2 3 4 2 - - 14 1.8
38 Korea  KR  3 0 0 0 1 1 3 2 - - 10 1.3

Martin Bäcklin, Mattias Nord and Niklas Hemlin with Velox
Back to 4-way training and competition after the corona virus crisis, the two Echochamber coaches will continue with their cooperation. They have known each other for much longer than only for the Echochamber time. Mattias Nord reminded the NSL News that he and Niklas Hemlin were actually team mates with Sweden's national 4-way team Velox and competed together at the FAI World Meet 1997 and the FAI World Cup 1998.

He said that Niklas Hemlin is still fluently communicating in Swedish. His regional accent from the Göteborg area even comes back when he is working with the team. Original Echochamber member Martin Bäcklin was actually in the same Velox lineup in 1997 and 1998. All three Velox members were back together 20 years later for Echochamber.

Niklas Hemlin has demonstrated for the team that a Swedish 4-way competitor could become a 4-way world champion. Now he is trying to help Echochamber to win their first set of FAI 4-way Open Class medals for Sweden. Niklas Hemlin won his FAI medals with U.S. teams, while Mattias Nord had his own excursion to the Norwegian team Arcteryx before he came back to compete again for Sweden. He missed the FAI bronze medals with Arcteryx with a 5th place in Maubeuge 2008.

Niklas Hemlin and Mattias Nord will both compete for new FAI medals at the FAI Mondial Tanay 2020 next year, Mattias Nord once again in 4-way Open, Niklas Hemlin only in 8-way with Airspeed XP8. SDC Rhythm XP will be Echochamber's opponent in Russia.

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