posted May 24th, 2020 - The recent NSL Live Talk conversations during the corona virus crisis zoomed in mostly on teams and competitors in countries across the skydiving world. There were a few exceptions when the NSL News was covering topics related to rules and regulations caused by the pandemic and its implications.

USPA's Director of Competition, Steve Hubbard, provided his feedback on April 29th. InTime operators Claire King and Dirk Venter explained their situation and their omnipresent position in the sport from South Africa on May 17th. Several conversations with team coaches were more directly related to the athletic part of Formation Skydiving competition.

Even the officials in the sport are usually still actively involved, as it has been the case with the previous interview partners on NSL Live Talk. The latest conversation took place on the same day when Out of the Blue commented the situation in the Netherlands. It was Friday evening in Central Europe at that time.

Six hours later, it was night time for Out of the Blue and still Friday in Florida, while Mark "Stretch" Szulmayer in Australia was up early early on Saturday morning taking his time for a new NSL Live Talk session and a first-hand update from the law-makers in the sport. Mark Szulmayer has been the Chairman of the International Skydiving Commission's (ISC) Formation Skydiving committee for many years. As Claire King, Dirk Venter and Steve Hubbard, he still competes at Australia's national championships on a regular basis, after an 8-way career with Australia's national team at two world meets in 2004 and 2008.

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FAI World Meet 2004			1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	Total	Avg
Rank	8-way Open		B,P,C,18	9,15,16	K,11,19	E,F,7,5	A,J,21,12	6,4,10	17,Q,L,1	H,14,3	13,22,O	Total	Avg
1	Arizona Airspeed	US	20	23	16	17	19	20	19	21	17	172	19.1
2	Maubeuge	FR	21	19	16	16	20	20	19	20	18	169	18.8
3	Evolution Pro	RU	18	20	17	16	18	19	20	20	19	167	18.6
4	Remscheid	DE	15	17	13	11	14	16	12	14	14	126	14.0
5	Ex3mo	IT	12	15	14	11	15	16	13	15	14	125	13.9
6	Australia	AU	10	12	9	9	9	9	10	11	9	88	9.8
7	South Africa	ZA	12	10	6	6	9	11	9	10	10	83	9.2
8	Austria	AT	10	10	9	9	8	10	9	9	8	82	9.1
9	Great Britain	UK	10	6	9	9	8	9	8	7	9	75	8.3
10	Japan	JP	9	6	9	6	5	9	7	5	7	63	7.0

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The ISC Formation Skydiving committee is in charge of the rules and regulations in the sport. They collect as much feedback from teams and competitors, judges, hosts and other officials in Formation Skydiving competition and discuss the topics on a regular basis, mostly via telecommunication.

Committee members meet each other in their other functions at events once in a while and usually get together at the annual FAI/ISC meetings to put in place updates for the event schedule, rules and regulations. They formulate the updates, which then have to be approved by the plenary of all delegates at the FAI/ISC meetings.

Chair Mark Szulmayer is the face of the committee and usually conducts the open meetings for teams and competitors at FAI/ISC events. He pointed out during the NSL Live Talk that he is currently supported by a very strong Formation Skydiving committee that has a wealth of knowledge and experiences available for any decisions to be made.

Kirk Verner, original Arizona Airspeed member and one of the most successful and most experienced 4-way and 8-way competitors in the history of the sport, is the Deputy Chairman of the committee. He is still training and competing with Airspeed XP8 and plans to win the 8-way competition at the FAI Mondial 2020 next year in Tanay, Russia. He also won the 8-way competition at the FAI Indoor World Meet 2019 with Paraclete XP8.

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Chair Mark Szulmayer has another reigning world champion by his side in the committee. In fact, original NMP PCH HayaBusa member David Grauwels has become one of the most successful 4-way competitors in history with his three consecutive world championship titles. He could keep adding more FAI/ISC gold medals to his collection after recently moving to the camera slot.

Egor Gusev is a member of the currently highest-scoring 4-way indoor team from Russia, IFS-Moscow. He has also trained and competed with Russian 4-way top teams Kaktus Hunter and Sportloto at outdoor events. Martin Lemay from Canada won a 4-way Open Class bronze medal with Evolution at the FAI Outdoor World Meet 2014, together with his brothers Vincent and Benoit. The three Lemay brothers also made history by adding a VFS bronze medal at the same event.

Trude Sviggum from Norway won a 4-way silver medal in 4-way Women at the first world meet in this event in Spain 2001, and then again in Gap 2003. She was back with Polaris in Dubai 2012 for a 4-way Women bronze medal. Randy Connell is looking back at experiences in judging and event management after a 4-way career in the United States long ago, and Karla Cole is one of the most experienced FAI Judges.

Mark Szulmayer explained that he and his committee have currently been discussing how to balance the controversial topic of judging accuracy versus the quickest presentation of results, especially at indoor competitions. He also said that the scheduling of FAI/ISC events after the end of the corona virus crisis is an ongoing and open topic. Only the FAI Mondial 2020 in Tanay next year is set in stone. The dates of all other FAI/ISC events beyond are still fluid. He was encouraging everybody to provide feedback for both topics directly to him: mszulmayer"at"hotmail.com