posted May 24th, 2021 - The NSL News covered the 4-way situation in Germany comprehensively when a change in the power structure occurred at the national championships of 2019. In fact, the team career of the new German 4-way champion, Oceanside AtomiX, has been well documented by the NSL News ever since the team started with the original lineup in 2013.

The AtomiX story came to a very happy ending at the German Outdoor Nationals 2019 when they won their first national 4-way title six years later. The lineup changed a few times over the years, and the 2019 championship lineup had three years together when they finally won and qualified as the German national 4-way Open Class team for the FAI Tanay Mondial 2020 this August.

Inside center Mark Zimmermann retired after the greatest team success. Andrea Kleinschmidt (Point), Peter Ingenhaag (Tail) and Holger Sass (Outside Center) continued with original team videographer Lars Naeve and were looking for a new team member in the same slot.

They found Paul Hofstee, as the NSL News reported on 27 October 2019. The new AtomiX lineup was complete and ready to begin with the preparations for the world meet, which would be the first one for the four original AtomiX members. Paul Hofstee had attended his last world meet with the Dutch delegation (Dynamic Fource) in Menzelinsk 2010 and brought in a lot of high-level competition experiences after his time with Dutch/Belgian 4-way combination of ISR Thunder.

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German Nationals 2019		1		2		3		4		5		6		7		8		9		10		Total	Avg
Rank	AAA Class	E,G,M,2		B,4,1		9,K,L,O		13,15,14		22,16,3		21,6,D		5,J,12		P,17,7		10,H,C,11		8,F,19		Total	Avg
1	Oceanside AtomiX	26		19		26	-1	15	-1	15		17		19		24		18		16		195	19.5
2	Airbus	22		18	-1	28		15		14	-1	15	-2	18		21		16	-1	19		186	18.6
3	Dark Energy	18	-2	14		20		11		13		16		14		17		13		14		150	15.0
4	Bardarbunga 2.0	20		14		22		13		8	-5	11	-2	14		17		13		16		148	14.8
5	Skynamite	18		14		17		11		11		14		12	-1	17		12	-1	14		140	14.0
6	NeVa FSZ Saar	19		14		15	-2	10		11		13		13		15		11		14		135	13.5
7	HorschD FSZ Saar	18		12		14		10		10		12		10		9	-2	11		11		117	11.7
8	Join Up	13	-1	13		15	-1	11		7	-2	12		10	-1	14		10	-1	11		116	11.6
9	Airgrips	10	-1	9		13		5	-1	7		10		8		9	-1	10		9	-1	90	9.0
10	4Motion	10		9		13		8		7		8		3	-1	9		6	-1	9		82	8.2

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The start of the next and most exciting AtomiX phase in the team's history was soon compromised by the growing implications of the corona virus crisis. The new lineup competed once at the Wind Games 2020 and started off on the same scoring level as in March 2019 at the German Indoor Nationals 2019.

Then the corona virus crisis brought the whole skydiving world to a halt, and AtomiX never managed to work around the tight restrictions in Germany. Unfortunate result of the situation was the current cancellation of the team's participation at the FAI Tanay Mondial 2020, as team speaker Peter Ingenhaag recently announced:

"Time for an update from Germany. The country slowly gets out of the restrictions from the pandemic but we had to make a very difficult decision this week. Unfortunately we decided to cancel our participation at this year's Mondial 2020. Due the corona pandemic and strict traveling rules in Germany we were not able to train since November last year.

If that's not enough, also a team member is injured and will need time to recover at least until mid/end of June if everything goes well. That means we would only have about 6 weeks to prepare ourselves for a world championship. As weekend warriors this seems not enough time for us to have a decent preparation. We will use the time instead to get ready for our nationals later this year and defend our title, so that we have enough time - hopefully without corona problems (due to ongoing vaccination right now) - to prepare ourselves for a good world meet in Eloy 2022."

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FAI Outdoor World Meet 2010			1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	Total	Avg
Rank	4-way Open Top 10		10,7,12	3,11,5	J,M,Q,P,L	19,1,13	N,18,20	K,17,8	2,15,H	4,D,6	O,E,9,G	22,B,16	Total	Avg
1	Aerodyne Aerokart	FR	21	22	56	20	22	24	22	24	40	26	277	27.7
2	Arizona Airspeed	US	22	21	53	23	20	24	23	25	40	23	274	27.4
3	Sky Panthers Barkli	RU	19	21	56	21	19	21	23	22	41	21	264	26.4
4	NMP PCH HayaBusa	BE	21	21	55	20	17	20	23	22	36	18	253	25.3
5	Evolution	CA	19	19	51	20	18	22	21	21	31	18	240	24.0
6	Sinapsi	IT	19	19	49	16	20	17	21	19	37	19	236	23.6
7	Paratec-Saar	DE	16	18	53	17	15	18	16	19	30	-	202	22.4
8	Satori	UK	18	18	47	16	17	18	17	18	29	-	198	22.0
9	Dynamic Fource	NL	17	18	44	16	16	15	16	18	26	-	186	20.7
10	Pro Team	FI	17	16	43	14	15	17	17	17	28	-	184	20.4

Participation of German 4-way teams at FAI World Championships of Formation Skydiving between 1985 and 2018

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Paul Hofstee will miss a return trip to Russia where he competed for the Netherlands a decade before the original date of the FAI Tanay Mondial 2020. His AtomiX team mates have to postpone their first participation at a world meet for a year and plan to travel to Eloy in 2022 instead.

Germany reacted quickly to the new situation. The German skydiving federation (DFV) and new national coach Robert Trögele agreed to replace the reigning national 4-way champions with another team for the 4-way Open Class category at the FAI Tanay Mondial 2020. The team in 2nd place at the German Nationals 2019, Airbus Illertissen, agreed without much hesitation to compete for Germany in August. In fact, the team embraces the opportunity to collect competition experiences on the highest international level. Airbus did not expect to find such an opportunity so early in the new lineup's 4-way career.

Only Thomas Mack has competed at 4-way world meets before, with earlier Airbus lineups in 2016 and 2018. He and his current 4-way teammate Alex Prendinger both competed for the Airbus 8-way lineup in Australia 2018, as well.

Germany's skydiving federation and national coach Robert Trögele reacted quickly after the cancellation to avoid the first absence of a German 4-way team in the history of FAI World Championships of Formation Skydiving. There are only less than three months left until Round 1 in Tanay. However, the current Airbus lineup was ready to fill the void, and the team will just continue with the preparations for this year's national championship in September. The bigger event will be the warm-up competition for the German Nationals 2021 where they will meet the still reigningAtomiX 4-way champions.