posted Jul 31st, 2006 - It is a fact now: the three former French 4-way world champions, Julien Losantos, Davide Moy and Erwan Pouliquen will compete at the World Meet 2006, together with the new team member Paul "Polo" Grisoni. Their new team, Gap Nice Icarius Autrement, won the French Nationals 2006 last weekend and will represent France in the 4-way Open Class competition.

The last two countries, Sweden and France, finally determined their national teams for the World Meet one week before the start of the competition in Germany. The first meet jumps of the World Meet are scheduled for Sunday, August 6. The NSL News has already crossed the Atlantic and will set headquarters in Gera later today.

While Sweden's outcome of the final qualification event was wide open, there were hardly any doubts that the former Maubeuge world champions with the new member would qualify as the French national team. The NSL News story on July 19 provided more information of the situation in France before the national championships.

The scores and the sequences of each jump are posted at last weekend's leaderboard, and the 19.0 meet average does not seem to be on gold medal level at the moment. However, the scores might not reflect the real potential of the French team. The weather in France did not allow more than five rounds, as Gill Winter reported from France:

"The weather was not very good which was a shame after more than two weeks of a heatwave in France. It rained Saturday afternoon and Sunday morning, so only five rounds of 4-way were carried out and three rounds of 8-way."

The first five rounds did not really offer the chance for a very high average at all. The missing second half of the draw was on the faster side (4-12-M, 2-19-E, 1-17-8, 6-0-16, 7-F-B-H) and would probably have brought up the average above the 20.0 average level.

However, Gap Nice Icarius Autrement did not need a 20.0 average to win the competition last weekend. The team in second place, Veloce Gap Aerokart, was far behind with a 15.6 average after five rounds. The goal for the new team was just to win and qualify. The real focus needs to be directed toward the competition in Germany.

The actual winner of this year's Coupe de France is another team. Noene Mandelieu attended all three meets of the event series and (15.3 - 13.8 - 14.0) and won with two first-place and one third-place finishes. Noene Mandelieu will now represent France at the 2006 championship of the European Skydiving League in September, as Gill Winter confirmed:

"I am pleased to say that the winner of our French Cup, Noene Mandelieu, will be participating at the ESL finals. The French Parachute Federation will pay their entry fee." France also plans to send two event judges to the ESL Championship 2006.

Julien Losantos, Davide Moy, Erwan Pouliquen and Paul Grisoni have the first competition of the 3-meet summer package out of the way. It was the easiest one. The team has now one week to get ready for the much higher pressure at the World Meet 2006, and the race for the $30,000 at the Malevsky Cup 2006 comes right after the competition in Germany.