posted Oct 12th, 2005 - The NSL News story on October 7 announced the NSL special event coverage of the World Cup 2005 at Skydive Arizona on October 24 - 29. The event pages have already been uploaded, and information of the participating teams have recently been added to these pages.

27 teams are currently registered for the three Formation Skydiving events, 4-way Open, 4-way Women and 8-way. Only three of these teams have not appeared anywhere at the NSL website yet (Spain in the 4-way Women's event, Lithuania and France in the 4-way Open competition). All other teams already have their team pages after attending previous events covered by the NSL News.

The 4-way Open competition is the strongest event, as usual. 15 teams will represent nine different nations. Russia, the United Kingdom and the USA have signed up three teams each. The rules of the World Cup allow each national association to register up to four teams.

Seven teams from five different nations will compete in the 4-way Women's class, as well as five 8-way teams from four nations.

The participation compares to the World Cups in Eloy 2000, Spain 2002 and Russia 2004 (Malevsky Cup), as the numbers of the previous events show.

The recent change of the international event cycle made the planning for the teams more challenging. The 2004 season even included the official World Cup in Russia and the World Championship later in Croatia. This year, several of the teams already competed at the Malevsky Cup 2005.

However, most of the best teams in the world will travel to Eloy this month, and the competition will be exciting in each of the three categories. The three medal winning nations of last year's 4-way Open competition at the World Championship in Croatia, USA, France and Russia, will be represented in Eloy later this month.

The USA have a new national team with DeLand Fire and also field two of the other five US top teams of this year's USPA Nationals, Airspeed Odyssey and Fastrax. Silver medalist of 2004, France, is in the middle of a re-building phase in 4-way. However, national coach David Jerome sent one of the new and young teams to the World Cup.

Last year's bronze medalist Russia will be represented by the country's three best teams of 2005, Black Cat (former Sky Panthers), Extreme.RU and SkyLight Barkli. Germany was in 5th place last year and has one of the two top teams (FSC Remscheid) competing at the World Cup 2005. Norway's Arcteryx and Denmark's DaneZ were separated by one single point in 2004, and both teams will be eager to move closer to the top teams. Only four of last year's top ten nations, Italy, Belgium, Switzerland and Spain will not be represented in Eloy.

The registered teams in 8-way and 4-way Women promise even more exciting competition. Four of the five best 8-way teams of last year's World Championship in Croatia and this year's Malevsky Cup will once again battle it out, this time for World Cup medals. Arizona Airspeed won the gold medals in Croatia 2004, but the young French team won at this year's Malevsky Cup. Russia took the bronze medals at both events, while Italy has settled in 4th position of the current world rankings. Only Germany is missing of the top five 8-way nations.

The competition of the 4-way Women's event might even be more interesting compared to last year's world meet and this year's Malevsky Cup. The three medal winners of the world meet in Croatia 2004 will compete with almost exactly the same line-ups (USA Synchronicity, France, Russia Ladybirds). France and Russia had a new showdown already in Russia this year, and the Ladybirds had moved much closer to France.

The upcoming World Cup promises additional top competition. The World Cup rules allow the second best US team, Fastrax Select, to challenge the US national team Perris Synchronicity once again this year after the lost battle at the USPA Nationals 2005.

However, a very new challenge in the Women's 4-way competition comes from the United Kingdom. Airkix neither competed in Croatia 2004 nor at the Malevsky Cup 2005. The UK team might still step right up to the medal level of USA, France and Russia. Airkix posted a 17.2 meet average at a fast 6-round meet in July, and team member Claire Scott is already familiar with the top level competition. She won the world meet gold medals with the UK team V-Max in 2003.

The NSL News will follow up with more previews of the World Cup of Formation Skydiving 2005, stay tuned.