posted Oct 14th, 2025 - Round 1 of the 4-way competition at the USPA National Skydiving Championships 2025 is less than two weeks away, and registration is in full progress until the day before the competition begins. A total of 49 teams have already signed up for the four events in horizontal 4-way formation skydiving competition, ten of them for the 4-way Open Class event.

Five of the ten teams are back after competing at last year's event, as well. One of the medal winners in 2024 is missing, which opens a door for a new USPA medalist. XPG4 have discontinued, even though the team name still appeared on leaderboards of the FAI Outdoor World Cup 2025.

SDC Rhythm XP will return onto the USPA 4-way Open Class podium, where they had their consecutive presence at each USPA Nationals since 2012. The Rhythm team project was launched in 2007, and the first lineup without original player-coach Robert Chromy won USPA 4-way Advanced gold medals in 2008. JaNette and Steve Lefkowitz worked their way up the 4-way Open Class leaderboard between 2009 and 2011 until they won their first set of USPA 4-way Open Class medals with the 2nd place in 2012. The USPA Nationals 2019 became the highlight in the team career when Rhythm won the USPA gold medals and qualified as the U.S. national team for the FAI Tanay Mondial 2020. Last year's event became the first one since 2012 where they had to leave the national championships without any USPA medals.

USPA Nationals 2025		1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	Total	Avg
Rank	4-way Open Power Rankings	TBD	TBD	TBD	TBD	TBD	TBD	TBD	TBD	TBD	TBD	TBD	Total	Avg
G	Aethers Lille	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
1	Golden Knights	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
2	Arizona Airspeed	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
3	SDC Rhythm XP	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
4	Redline XP	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
4	Elsinore Elevate	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
6	Inertia AZ	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
6	SDC Rhetirement Rhedux	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
6	Spaceland Lite	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
9	XP Angels	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-

XPG4 took a medal position first time with the 2nd place at the USPA Nationals 2023, which the 2024 lineup defended successfully. The Golden Knights ended up without a medal in 2023, SDC Rhythm XP in 2024. This year, Arizona Airspeed, Golden Knights and Rhythm will most likely be back together on the USPA 4-way Open Class podium.

However, the order of the medal positions will probably be different compared to the previous years when the same three teams shared the USPA podium. Arizona Airspeed was usually in 1st place, with the exception of 2019, SDC Rhythm in 2nd place, Golden Knights 3rd. This year, the order could rather match the one at the Shamrock Showdown 2025, which has very often been an indicator of the results at the major events later in the same year.

In fact, there is a very good chance that the ranking order at the USPA Nationals 2025 matches the Shamrock Showdown leaderboard even in the first four positions. The NSL News mentioned earlier that the French indoor world champions and outdoor word cup winners, Aethers Lille, were planning to travel to Skydive Arizona and compete at Skydive DeLand in April next year again, as well. They are officially registered for the USPA Nationals and will be ready to face the best U.S. teams at their showdown and the qualification for the outdoor world championship next year.

USPA Nationals 2024		1		2		3		4		5		6		7		8		9		10		Total	Avg
Rank	4-way Open	K,P,H,19		C,F,20,N		M,O,L,12		G,6,3		17,7,10		A,21,14		18,9,4		22,15,1		11,13,E		2,16,B		Total	Avg
1	Arizona Airspeed	35	-1	33		30	-1	24		23	-1	23		23		19		24		24		258	25.8
2	XPG4	31		30		28		20		18	-3	20		22		17		18	-1	21		225	22.5
3	Golden Knights	29	-1	30		29		20		21		18	-3	20		13	-4	18	-3	21		219	21.9
4	SDC Rhythm XP	25	-2	22	-1	25		19		20	-1	18	-1	17	-2	16		17		20	-1	199	19.9
5	RhEvolution XP	19	-3	21	-1	18	-1	16	-1	17		15	-1	17		13		16		15	-1	167	16.7
6	Rough Landing Strips	19		22	-1	19	-1	14	-1	16	-1	16	-1	17		13		15	-1	13	-4	164	16.4
7	Don't Run Into Anything	19	-1	18		16	-2	13	-1	14	-1	14		13		10		14	-1	16	-4	147	14.7
8	SDC Rhetirement Rhedux	18	-1	14	-2	17	-1	11	-2	11		13		12		10		11	-1	13		130	13.0
9	XP Angels	10		11		11		8		9		8		7		6	-1	7	-1	10		87	8.7
10	Perris 4ever	9		9	-1	9		7		7		9		6	-1	8		8		8		80	8.0

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Arizona Airspeed - Golden Knights at the USPA Nationals 2024

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Aethers Lille have been far ahead of the U.S. teams since the beginning of this year, even though the Golden Knights reduced the distance significantly at the FAI Outdoor World Cup 2025. The French team makes the trip to Arizona to get the next impression of the development in the United States.

Golden Knights and Arizona Airspeed were separated only by three points at the Shamrock Showdown in April, which would set up both teams in the position of a gold medal contender in 4-way Open at the upcoming USPA Nationals. However, the difference grew to 16 points at the Summer Classic 2025. Then the U.S. Army team increased their performance and scoring level with coach Niklas Hemlin to the 24.6 average at the outdoor world cup at Skydive Teuge, which also reduced the distance to Aethers Lille significantly at the same time. It seems to be a very difficult task for Arizona Airspeed to defend the 4-way Open Class gold medals successfully very soon.

Rhetirement Rhedux and XP Angels are the other two of the five returning teams. The five additional and registered teams have very interesting stories, as well, which will be topics for more previews.

Shamrock Showdown 2025			1		2		3		4		5		6		7		8		9		10		Total	Avg
Rank	AAA Class		17,M,10		20,19,F		18,22,K		N,G,3,16		O,E,P,21		9,L,5		6,13,1		C,J,Q,4		D,8,A,H		12,11,14		Total	Avg
1	Aethers	FR	25		23		21		24		34		32		23		32		29		18		261	26.1
2	Golden Knights	US	19	-2	24		18	-2	24		28	-1	26	-2	20		27	-2	26	-1	15	-2	227	22.7
3	Arizona Airspeed	US	23	-1	21		18		22		27	-2	28	-1	18	-1	24	-4	26		17		224	22.4
4	SDC Rhythm XP	US	20		17	-2	17		16	-2	24	-3	24	-1	19		18	-7	21	-1	15		191	19.1
5	Qatar Cheetahs	QA	17	-2	18		14		18	-2	24		19	-2	15	-1	24		21		12	-1	182	18.2
6	Airbus 4-way Illertissen	DE	15	-4	14	-2	13		16		19	-3	19		15		23		19		12		165	16.5
7	Jen and the Double D's	US	15		13	-1	13		13	-1	18	-1	13		13		18	-2	17		9	-2	142	14.2
8	4Action	US	9	-1	10	-1	8	-1	9		13	-1	10		9		11	-3	12		9		100	10.0

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Aethers Lille - Golden Knights - Arizona Airspeed - SDC Rhythm XP at the Shamrock Showdown 2025

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