posted Jul 4th, 2006 - The two Swedish contenders for the tickets to the World Meet 2006 in Germany, Team 42 and Team Spa, are still in a deadlock. The decision who will represent Sweden at the World Meet 2006 has been postponed, and the race continues.

Swedish league manager Lennart Vestbom updated the NSL News after last weekend's third competition this year. The scores were already posted a few days ago, however, the meaning of the latest Swedish results were unknown so far.

Lennart Vestbom commented last weekend's competition: "It was another incredible battle for a ticket to the World Meet! The two top teams in Sweden, Spaï and 42, still have to fight for a ticket to the World Meet. Last weekend, both teams did better than ever, and still they are even."

Team Spaï had opened the Swedish 2006 competition season on June 3 with a 13.3 average after six rounds. Team 42 did not attend the first meet. Both teams competed on June 17, and Team Spaï won by one single point with a 13.4 average after ten rounds. The NSL News story on June 20 covered the exciting competition.

The 2-way race last weekend was even closer and ended with both teams tied in first place after seven rounds with 14.7 averages. Team Spaï then had to withdraw due to a sick team member, and Team 42 went on to complete the 10-round competition with a 14.7 average, as well.

Lennart Vestbom said that the competition had the best total average ever at a competition in Sweden: "It was really a very exciting competition, and all the DZ locals were watching during the video judging."

Spaï and 42 still needed a tie-breaker to determine the winner of this Swedish Cup event, which considers only six rounds. Both teams were tied after six rounds and scored 11 points in round seven, the jump-off round for the Swedish Cup. Finally, the last highest score between the two teams, Team 42's 16-pointer in round three, was the final tie-breaker, and Team 42 was the winner of this event. However, Team Spaï is the 2006 champion of the Swedish Cup event series after attending all three meets and winning two of them.

Lennart Vestbom also commented the performances of the other teams at last weekend's competition: "Sweet4 posted the team's best average ever with 12.7 after six rounds and 12.0 after ten rounds. Gubben På Topp is the former Hair-2-Tatoo with new member Bodil Almberg. She is the substitute for John Westling. Bodil Almberg competed in the early 90's in a female team called Järnet from Sundsvalls FK. The 10-point average is a great improvement since last year.

Parsväng, with the couples Mattias Nord/Jessica Tangen and Stefan Burström/Annika Granebäck, made up their mind to join the meet early Saturday morning. Wingsuit flyer Fredrik Tengbom was on video. The team members are real good jumpers, with Mattias Nord on top. He is coaching most of the Swedish teams, and he still is one of the best skydivers in Sweden ever.

Touch from Linköpings FK, attended the team's first competition in 2006 and had problems in some rounds, including a video bust in round one, but ended up with a 14-pointer in round six. Team Karma of Stockholm FK is a local team at Gryttjom's drop zone. The members are all experienced Formation Skydiving jumpers. The line-up consists of Karin Lien-Olofsson with husband Mats Olofsson, both participants of the 400-way world record, Ann Lindberg and Katarina Sonnevi. Johannes Nilsson was on camera. The team finished with a great 8.5 average.

Finally, the Swedish Cup manager gave credit to the meet staff and pointed out a special judging novelty: "I also want to give credit to the competition chief Veronica Sjölin of the Stockholm Club. Besides the 4-way competition with seven teams, she also organised the Swedish Cup in FreeFlying.

Because of a lack of Swedish FF judges, she set up a connection to FF judges in Finland who were gathered to judge at the Finish Cup event at the same time. Veronica Sjölin sent the videos of the Swedish team Zero, Stockholm FSK, to Finland by internet. They down-loaded the jumps at a website, the judges in Finland judged it and sent the results by e-mail to the organizer in Sweden."

FAI judge and organizer of the 4-way league events in Finland, Jukka Olkkonen, confirmed this procedure from the other side of the Gulf of Bothnia, which separates Sweden and Finland: "During the 4-way league competition in Finland we also judged the Swedish Freefly Cup competition that was held in Gryttjom, Sweden. Swedish Freefly judges could not be there, and there was only one team participating. We had our competition here in Finland, and we decided to judge the Swedish competition for them. So they uploaded jumps to a website, and we downloaded them and judged them in Finland."

After all, the Swedish race between 42 and Spaï continues. The Swedish competition committée has been granted an exemption from the usual World Meet procedures. Sweden is allowed to go past the registration deadline and may provide the names of the competitors in the Swedish delegation at a later date.

The new date for the final qualification as the Swedish national 4-way team in Germany is July 23 - 26, the Swedish Nationals 2006. This will become the final showdown between 42 and Spaï.