posted Jul 7th, 2010 - The new meet videos of the Midway Battle include the latest competition jumps of the reigning 4-way world champions, Arizona Airspeed.

Airspeed had direct competition at Skydive Chicago, as Perris Fury and Canada's national 4-way team Evolution made the trip to Illinois, as well. However, Fury was troubled by several point deductions and could not get numbers posted on the scoreboard that would put serious pressure on Airspeed.

Evolution posted the team's best meet average ever. It was still not good enough yet to keep up with the world champions from Arizona. Evolution plans to show the team's final results of this year's preparations at the World Championship of Formation Skydiving 2010 in Menzelinsk, Russia.

June 12th, 2010		Round1	Round2	Round3	Round4	Round5	Total	Avg
Rank	AAA Class	B,9,21	J,P,E,10	G,M,7,L	4,Q,14	22,6,19	Total	Avg
2	USA Arizona Airspeed	29	28	33	23	19	132	26.4
1	France Aerodyne Cypres Maubeuge	28	31	35	22	20	136	27.2

The Road to Russia

Airspeed's real competition on the weekend of the Midway Battle was the French national 4-way team, Aerodyne Cypres Maubeuge, that competed at the second meet of this year's Coupe de France.

The NSL News had reported earlier that the same competition draw would be used at both events, which turned out successfully. Airspeed's scores in Ottawa and Maubeuge's scores in LeBlanc eventually ended up on the same NSL leaderboard of that weekend.

The Airspeed videos show an almost flawless 5-round performance, which was bothered only by one glitch during Block 22 in Round 5 and the point deduction in Round 2. The world class performance maintained the usual distance to Perris Fury and did not allow Evolution to get anywehere close.

Arizona Airspeed at Skydive Chicago's Midway Battle 2010

The 26.4 average after the five rounds at Skydive Chicago was still not good enough to defeat the French team in the remote duel. Aerodyne Cypres Maubeuge won three rounds, Airspeed two. France was up by four points after five rounds with a 27.2 average.

It is not too difficult to see that Airspeed lost a point in Round 5 after the glitch during the block move. However, it is much harder to understand how the French team won the other points.

Airspeed did not perform on the team's top level throughout the whole competition of the World Challenge 2010 where France won the first competition that Airspeed did not win. This time, the defending world champions looked much better than in Bedford and could still not fend off the French challenge. The upcoming World Meet in Russia will bring both teams back together at the same time and at the same location for the final showdown.