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.

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Recorded on 30 April 2020

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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.

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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

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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.