posted Jun 14th, 2021 - The annual Paranodon Cup in Illertissen was the outdoor restart competition in Germany. It was to be expected that the event would be smaller than usual, while a total number of eight teams still made it to the home of the Airbus teams.

Even Air-W from Switzerland made the trip once again and have not missed the Paranodon Cup since 2015. There was no event last year, due to the pandemic situation, and the Swiss team attended its 6th Paranodon Cup last weekend.

Air-W still have two original members (Beat Kaltenrieder, Frede Wilde) in the current lineup, who competed in the A Class competition of 2015. The original lineup (Rolf Hänni, Roger Müller, Marcel Müller on camera) stepped up first into the AA Class a year later, and then to AAA in 2017. Markus Spichtig joined Beat Kaltenrieder and Frede Wilde before the pandemic in 2019, Steffi Rohner now for the restart.

Paranodon Classic was back with a high-profile lineup with some of the most experienced Formation Skydiving competitors in Germany. Thomas Spielvogel is still a member of the German national team in 8-way Open, Airbus, and will compete at the FAI Tanay Mondial 2020 in August. He joined forces once again with his 1988 4-way and 8-way championship teammate Jan Rojek, as they did in 2018 and 2019 at the Paranodon Cup.

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Paranodon Cup 2021			1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	Total	Avg
Rank	AAA Class		A,P,7,10	20,K,15	J,1,C,13	14,6,3	12,D,17	O,M,G,11	B,2,F,L	E,9,8	22,16,21	Q,18,4	Total	Avg
1	Paranodon 4way Illertissen	DE	13	9	14	10	11	18	18	14	9	12	128	12.8
2	Paranodon Classic	DE	12	9	12	8	10	14	11	13	7	9	105	10.5
3	Air-W	CH	7	7	11	7	7	12	12	10	7	7	87	8.7
Rank	AA Class		A,P,7	20,K,15	J,1,C	14,6	D,13,L	O,M,G,11	B,2,F	E,9,8	22,21	Q,18,4	Total	Avg
1	2M2O	DE	8	6	6	4	6	8	9	8	6	7	68	6.8
2	ZX-RW	DE	10	6	9	5	8	10	11	4	-	-	63	7.9
3	Paranodon Futura 2	DE	11	6	7	5	-	-	-	-	-	-	29	7.3
Rank	A Class		A,P,7	K,8	J,C,H	6,N	D,L,19	O,M,G	B,2	E,9	21,F	Q,4	Total	Avg
1	Paranodon Futura 3	DE	14	11	7	13	6	9	12	14	21	7	114	11.4
2	Paranodon Futura 4	DE	3	3	1	1	4	2	4	1	8	3	30	3.0

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NSL Live Talk: Michael Axmann with Black Mantis

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Father Robert and son Andreas Trögele (camera) joined forces once again with Thomas Spielvogel and Jan Rojek, while a new team member completed the lineup. Michael Axmann visited from Austria. He is one of the original Black Mantis members, Austria's new national team in 4-way Open. The NSL News had introduced Black Mantis with NSL Live Talk on 4 October 2020.

Michael Axmann had traveled to Paranodon in Illertissen with his own team to attend the Paranodon Cup 2020, which was also a part of the NSL Cloud Mondial 2020. Bad weather allowed the teams only the completion of two rounds. Black Mantis did not visit last weekend, and Michael Axmann joined the Paranodon Classic lineup.

Robert Trögele is the operator of the skydiving center in Illertissen. He trained and competed against Thomas Spielvogel and Jan Rojek with his own 4-way and 8-way teams in the 80's. He is also the new German national coach for the Formation Skydiving delegation and succeeds Mathias Maushake in this position. Robert Trögele wants to grow the Paranodon Cup to a higher level in the near future and plans to join the international NSL Network with his event.

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NSL Live Talk: Felix Pfeiffer with Airbus Illertissen

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Paranodon's signature team, with a young lineup of new German 4-way talent (Sven Erhardt, Pablo Fahrenschon, Thomas Altendorfer, Andreas Höhne, Davis Starke on camera), had just moved up into AAA Class competition at the Fly Challenge in February 2020 when the corona virus crisis hit.

Thomas Altendorfer, Sven Erhardt, Pablo Fahrenschon and team videographer David Starke have been training and competing together since 2018. Andi Höhne joined the team for the last step into the AAA Class world, and they completed the ten rounds with a 12.8 outdoor record average.

Former Paranodon member Felix PFeiffer was also back at the place where he grew up in 4-way training and competition. The NSL News reported on 23 August 2020 that the Airbus 4-way team recruited him for the new lineup without a player-coach. He will now attend his first world meet, as Airbus replaces Oceanside AtomiX at the FAI Tanay Mondial 2020.

He joined Tiffany Valeriano, Anna Reikita and Stefanie Höcherl in Paranodon Futura's AA Class lineup, with Marcel Abat on camera. He was also in the lineup of the new team ZX-RW for double-duties in the AA Class. Both teams had injury troubles and could not complete all meet rounds.