posted Oct 30th, 2021 - The 10-way Speed competition at the USPA Nationals 2021 turned out to be as exciting as can be as the last obstacle for the three Arizona Airspeed members (Niklas Hemlin, Mikhail Markine, Chris Kuhlmann) to complete their ultimate Formation Skydiving sweep.

The Golden Knights made it extremely difficult for ASXP10 to win the very different 10-way speed competition. Airspeed's 10-way team was about a second ahead of the U.S. Army team after Round 5, and the Golden Knights had delivered their second best time (12.32) of the meet in the last round.

AZXP10 had to follow up, and it became very dramatic when Chris Kuhlmann missed the completion of the formation with his sideward swoop. The judges first saw a complete formation and timed it accordingly for a clear Airspeed win with a 12-second time in Round 6.

The second review generated a new time when the judges did not count the first attempt of the completion. The new time would have given the Golden Knights the gold medals. However, the final score was eventually good enough for AZXP10 to save a lead of 21 hundredths of a second over the 6-round finish line. Both teams were separated by 3 hundredths of a second (12.79 - 12.82) for their average completion time.

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NSL Live Yalk with USPA Executive Director Albert Berchtold and Ben Liston

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This extremely thin advantage was still enough for Niklas Hemlin, Mikhail Markine and Chris Kuhlmann to win their 4th gold medals at this year's national championships. They were together in 4-way Open with Arizona Airspeed, with Airspeed XP8 in 8-way Open, AZXPGK in 16-way, and finally with AZXP10 in 10-way Speed.

It could not have been a better year for this 3-way, after coming back from Russia with 8-way gold medals at the FAI Tanay Mondial 2020. Their 4-way team mate Joey Marshall won his own three USPA gold medals, and his 8-way team, The Expendables, outscored his three team mates and the new world champions in Round 1.

In fact, Airspeed XP8 members won all Formation Skydiving events, including XPG4 in 4-way Women. Jeana Billings and Michelle Karamon collected their own sets of four USPA gold medals. Their team mate Brenn Richards copied Joey Marshall's triple gold collection, and the five former Ranch 2nd Generation team mates had their most successful USPA Nationals.

USPA's Executive Director Albert Berchtold and original Mass Defiance member Ben Liston provided a summary of the USPA Nationals 2021 shortly after the conclusion of the 10-way Speed competition and before the award ceremony. Both of them competed in their own events this year, Albert Berchtold in Canopy Piloting and Accuracy, Ben Liston in all of the Formation Skydiving events.

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USPA Nationals 2021		1	2	3	4	5	6	Total	Avg
Rank	10-way Speed	TBD	TBD	TBD	TBD	TBD	TBD	Total	Avg
1	AZXP10	12.12	13.65	11.81	13.50	12.51	13.13	76.72	12.79
2	Golden Knights	13.68	11.37	12.43	14.01	13.12	12.32	76.93	12.82
3	Prison Break	17.97	16.14	15.58	19.56	16.92	17.57	103.74	17.29

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Round 6 in 10-way Speed at the USPA Nationals 2021

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