posted Jul 26th, 2007 - Each meet weekend seems to offer a lot of great scores and information this year so far. The 4-way community is still growing, more meets are becoming more exciting, and many of the teams are becoming more competitive. At the same time, a growing number of teams and competitors seem to attend the meets just to have a lot of fun for one day every month.

In addition, the growing number of high-profile competitions bring some extra spice and excitement to the normal league and meet operation mostly in the USA and in Europe. Valentine's Meet in February, Shamrock Showdown in March, World Challenge in April, Malevsky Cup in July - the NSL News has covered a lot of these major events in the past and this year.

The next high-profile event is coming up this weekend, the Paraclete XP Money Meet 2007 in Raeford, North Carolina, and the NSL News is getting ready to travel north for a live coverage on competition site.

Several of the best US teams will compete in Raeford, including Airspeed Odyssey and the Golden Knights. The total of $14,000 cash is on stake, plus eight hours of free tunnel time at the new windtunnel in Raeford.

This weekend's event will include the second showdown between Airspeed Odyssey and the Golden Knights. Both teams competed already at the FSL Shamrock Showdown 2007 in March, and Airspeed won by eight points after ten rounds (230 - 222).

Airspeed Odyssey continued the 2007 season on schedule and attended the World Challenge 2007 at Bodyflight Bedford in April. The 26.0 average at the Malevsky Cup 2007 was Airspeed's last and most recent showing.

The Golden Knights had originally planned to travel to Russia, as well. The Army team's plans changed when Eric Heinsheimer injured his neck and had to be replaced by John Hoover. The Golden Knights still attended two meets of the Carolina Skydiving League, while the new line-up tried to get ready for the major events in 2007.

The Paraclete XP Money Meet 2007 is the first serious test for this line-up before the Golden Knights will try to win the USPA Nationals 2007 in September. Airspeed Odyssey is the number one contender for this year's gold medals after setting new 4-way standards in Russia, and the US Army team has the opportunity to find out what it will take to beat the Arizona team. Team Fastrax had the Paraclete XP Money Meet 2007 on its agenda, as well, but decided no to attend the competition this weekend.

The upcoming meet weekend has many more very interesting aspects. Once again, the international NSL network offers a mini world meet, with 4-way competitions in six different countries (Austria, Finland, France, Germany, Czech Republic, USA) and the same competition draw everyhere.

The eyes of the world's top contenders will mostly be focused on the events in Raeford and in France. Airspeed Odyssey and the French national 4-way team competed directly with each other at the Valentine's Meet 2007. Airspeed won by ten points (222 - 212), however, the new and young French team showed its promising potential in several rounds. The videos of the meet jumps in February are still available on NSL-TV.

The French national A-Team did not compete at the events of the Coupe de France 2007, only the national B-Teams posted some scores a few weeks ago. The upcoming competition in France is the national championship, and all national teams will attend this event including the A-Teams in 4-way Open, 4-way Women and 8-way. The French national A-Teams will then travel to Russia in August and compete at the World Cup 2007.

The French national coach, Jerome David, and the whole 4-way community in France will be very interested to compare the French scores directly with Airspeed at this point in time. Both teams would compete for the gold medals at the World Championship of Formation Skydiving 2008 if Airspeed wins the USPA Nationals in September 2007.

The NSL News will post the scores of the Paraclete XP Money Meet 2007 live from competition site in Raeford. The scores from France and the other events in Europe will be added as soon as possible. It will be an exciting weekend.