posted Feb 2nd, 2021 - Kirk Verner and David Grauwels provided the NSL News audience with valuable information and feedback after they attended this year's annual meeting of the International Skydiving Commission (ISC) delegates to the World Air Sports Federation (Federation Aeronautique Internationale - FAI).

They accepted an invitation for a new NSL Live Talk, which took place on January 31st. There were many good reasons to ask Kirk Verner and David Grauwels for the online meeting. They are FAI/ISC delegates for their countries (United States - Belgium), and they are very active competitors at the same time.

Usually, active competitors are busy enough with team training and the rest of their professional or amateur lives. Some of them turn to judging, rules and regulations when they are done with their athletic careers and want to continue with being involved in the sport, only in different ways.

This is extremely different for Kirk Verner and David Grauwels, and they explained what motivated them to take on roles in the development of the sport while they are still competing.

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Malevsky Memorial Cup 2005			1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	Total	Avg
Rank	AAA Class		10,C,11	2,M,20	K,A,3,F	14,7,O	22,19,P	D,15,G,8	L,18,J,13	1,H,N,16	5,12,6	E,9,Q,17	Total	Avg
1	DeLand Fire	US	19	20	26	22	18	20	20	22	17	32	216	21.6
2	Airspeed Odyssey	US	19	19	22	23	17	20	19	19	18	28	204	20.4
3	Sinapsi PD	IT	17	19	24	21	17	19	20	19	17	29	202	20.2
3	Airspeed Velocity	US	19	20	26	21	17	18	20	16	17	28	202	20.2
5	Fastrax	US	17	19	28	21	18	16	19	21	17	23	199	19.9
6	Black Cat	RU	18	19	23	20	18	16	19	19	18	25	195	19.5
7	Spa Hayabusa	BE	16	18	27	19	18	18	19	19	16	24	194	19.4
8	Extreme.RU	RU	18	19	25	21	17	16	19	19	16	22	192	19.2
9	SkyLight Barkli	RU	14	19	20	21	16	18	17	18	16	24	183	18.3
10	Kolomna Quikblu	RU	14	18	26	18	14	16	17	18	15	24	180	18.0
11	Arcteryx	NO	16	18	21	17	16	17	12	16	15	23	171	17.1
12	Punky Fish	NL	15	16	19	16	13	16	15	19	11	24	164	16.4
13	4Gatos Empuria Red Bull	ES	14	15	20	17	14	17	14	15	14	23	163	16.3
14	Synairgy	RU	14	16	20	15	10	14	11	13	11	20	144	14.4
14	X-Ray Remscheid	DE	13	15	17	15	10	14	13	14	13	20	144	14.4
16	FILA	AT	11	16	16	15	14	14	12	15	12	17	142	14.2
17	Sunny Heaven	RU	11	16	14	16	13	14	14	11	15	12	136	13.6
18	Stratosfear	CA	12	14	17	11	11	12	13	14	10	20	134	13.4
19	Mandelieu-Noene	FR	11	14	16	12	12	12	11	13	12	13	126	12.6
20	Blackbirds	DE	9	13	14	11	9	11	9	12	10	15	113	11.3
21	Paraskuf	UA	8	9	10	10	7	8	9	6	5	11	83	8.3
22	Gudzun	RU	9	11	9	12	7	11	10	11	-	-	80	10.0
23	Virton Sky	UA	6	9	11	8	8	5	0	8	-	-	55	6.9
24	Kazakhstan	KZ	4	6	9	7	6	5	7	6	-	-	50	6.3

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In fact, Kirk Verner and David Grauwels both are aiming at their next gold medals at FAI World Championships of Formation Skydiving.

Kirk Verner has two 4-way (1995 - 1997) and two 8-way (1999 - 2004) gold medals in his collection with Arizona Airspeed. Now he is in the Airspeed XP8 lineup and trains just as hard as he used to do 25 years ago. Airspeed XP8 is aiming at 8-way gold medals at the FAI Tanay Mondial 2020 in August this year.

David Grauwels has won three consecutive 4-way gold medals (2014 - 2016 - 2018) as NMP PCH HayaBusa's inside center. Now he has switched to the camera slot and plans to film his team to the next set of 4-way gold medals at the same event.

The interesting aspect of the two very active world-class competitors and world champions is the fact that they have never posted their scores on the same leaderboard - with one single exception that Kirk Verner and David Grauwels pointed out last week.

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Airspeed Velocity and Spa HayaBusa in Round 10 at the Malevsky Memorial Cup 2005

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Kirk Verner has won his own two 4-way titles of 1995 and 1997, when NMP PCH HayaBusa were far from being born as a team. David Grauwels said that Arizona Airspeed's original lineup, including Kirk Verner, were the role models for the two Grauwels brothers David and Andy when they started skydiving.

Kirk Verner returned the compliment and said that the whole skydiving world has been impressed with the Belgian world champions for many years now.

Even though they both won 4-way gold medals and still meet each other frequently at the international events, there was only one competition where they shared the same leaderboard. Airspeed's second 4-way lineup Velocity (Kirk Verner, Neal Houston, Dennis Rook, Andy Honigbaum, Ash White on camera) and Spa HayaBusa of 2005 (Roy Janssen, Sven Ibens, David and Andy Grauwels, with Bruno van den Eede on camera) both competed at the Malevsky Memorial Cup in Stupino, Russia.

David Grauwels was on his way to attend his first world meet a year later, while Kirk Verner would leave Arizona soon and continue at Paraclete XP. Kirk Verner won this one and only duel in 2005, and they will both score on different leaderboards once again this August...