posted May 4th, 2010 - The NSL News reported on 30 November 2009 that Russia had a new world class 8-way lineup in the works. The story on 5 December 2009 confirmed the 8-way news from Russia and introduced the lineup.

A preview of the FSL Shamrock Showdown 2010 on 15 March 2010 provided a 4-way update from Russia but also included a paragraph with 8-way news. Michail Kuznetsov had left the 8-way lineup to focus only on 4-way with his Sky Panthers.

Then came the 8-way competition of the Shamrock Showdown, and all the attention shifted to the Golden Knights and the US team's first and only 8-way competition before the World Championship of Formation Skydiving 2010.

Golden Knights at the Shamrock Showdown 2010

The NSL News has not followed up on the last 8-way news from Russia yet. Last weekend's event in Kolomna offered the perfect opportunity, as the new Russian 8-way lineup attended its first competition.

The new team member, who has replaced Michail Kuznetsov, is another former Extreme.RU and Crossroads member, Nikolay Vylegzhanin. This makes the current Russian 8-way lineup a combination of all Skylight Barkli members (Leonid Kazinets, Vladimir Pavlenko, Oleg Shalamihin, Sergey Shenin), three former Crossroads and Extreme.RU members (Aleksandr Tichinskii, Nikolay Vylegzhanin, Sergey Yalpaev), plus Vladimir Arutunov of the former Evolution Pro 8-way team.

The new lineup has not trained much yet. However, the team and the meet management in Kolomna decided to use the competition draw of the Shamrock Showdown 2010 for the first test. The NSL News twisted the 8-way leaderboard of the Shamrock Showdown a little bit and integrated the new Russian scores for an easier comparison.

March 18th, 2010			Round 1	Round 2	Round 3	Round 4	Round 5	Round 6	Round 7	Round 8	Total	Avg
Rank	AAA Class		19,O,12	A,14,11	E,9,2	18,13,7	8,16,N	4,15,D	J,H,G,3	22,1,6	Total	Avg
1	USA Golden Knights	FSL	15	16	14	15	21	26	29	17	153	19.1
2	Russia Barkli	RU	14	16	16	16	18	20	18	18	136	17.0
3	Paraclete 8	FSL	15	17	11	16	20	21	-	-	100	16.7
4	Dallas Rogue	FSL	11	7	12	11	14	17	19	13	104	13.0

It surely looks like the Russian 8-way team will be able to give the top contenders from France and the USA a serious competition. The Golden Knights obviously have a big advantage with faster sequences so far, as the scores of Rounds 6 and 7 show. However, the Russian Barkli team managed to stay really close in six of the eight rounds and even won three rounds.

Barkli lost a total of eight points in the eight meet rounds and still finished with a promising 17.0 average. It is not a big surprise that Russia is coming back with a strong 8-way lineup now, as the World Championship of Formation Skydiving is hosted by Russia this year. The Menzelinsk Skydiving Center will welcome the skydiving world in July/August.

Russia's last 8-way team Evolution Pro had finished in 3rd place at the World Meet 2006 in Germany with a 17.3 average. There was no Russian 8-way team at the World Meet 2008 in France, and Italy won the bronze medals with an 18.0 average.

Russia then won the bronze medals with an 11.5 average at the World Cup 2009 with a pickup team that was guided by Vladimir Arutyunov and Sergey Yalpaev. Both are now members of the new Barkli lineup.

The 17.0 average is just a starting point for the very experienced Russian 8-way lineup.

The defending 8-way world champions from France and the Golden Knights know that the Russian Barkli team will post much better numbers at the World Meet if they get enough training.

The Barkli lineup has six weeks to get ready for the Russian Nationals 2010. Then there will be six more weeks before the 8-way competition begins in Menzelinsk.