posted Apr 11th, 2013 - The story of the 4way teams from the United Kingdom at the World Challenge 2013 would not be complete without looking at the leaderboard of the female 4way competition.

Female 4way competitors have been a very strong part in British Formation Skydiving competition for many years. It has been a long time since XL dominated outdoor 4way competition in the United Kingdom with a male lineup (Thomas Hughes, Pete Allum, John McIver, Steve Hamilton). Three XL members of 2003 competed once again at this year's World Challenge, but not under the British flag with US competitor Brian Johnson.

Satori was next to control UK 4way competition for a long time and is still the reigning 4way champion. However, Satori's first lineup had three female competitors (Julia Foxwell, Liz Mathews, Katie Woods) and allowed Aaron Faith to be the first male member to help launching the Satori project.

World Challenge 2013		Rd. 1	Rd. 2	Rd. 3	Rd. 4	Rd. 5	Rd. 6	Rd. 7	Rd. 8	Rd. 9	Rd. 10	Total	Avg
Rank	AAA Open Class	O,E,J,K,3	M,Q,A,14	4,6,16	8,18,N	H,19,12	2,7,13	11,C,P,9	15,D,10	L,F,17,G	20,1,22	Total	Avg
2	Satori Chix (INT)	29	29(-1)	17	18	20	18	26	19	29	17	222	22.2
3	Bodyflight Isis (UK)	29	29	17	18	18	18	23	17(-1)	24	15	208	20.8
5	Kaizen (UK)	26(-1)	24	16(-1)	16(-1)	17	17	23	17	25	16	197	19.7
14	SonicNutz (UK)	29	22	17	18	16	13	22	19	17	14	187	18.7
15	Eclipse (UK)	22	25	15	16	15	17	19	15	22	14	180	18.0
19	Escondido (UK)	22	24	14	15	17	16	16	13	21	13	171	17.1
26	Hyrrokkin (UK)	19	21	13	13	13	14	18	15	19	10	155	15.5

The all-female Bodyflight Storm lineup won the UK Nationals 2008, however, Julia Foxwell has won each UK 4way gold medal ever since with different Satori lineups and competed at the world meets in 2010 and 2012 in the open class. Now she was back at the World Challenge with a pickup team for the female 4way competition and won this category.

The British female 4way competitors demonstrated their powerful contribution to Formation Skydiving competition once again, and probably even more clearly than ever, at this year's World Challenge. The combined leaderboard of the UK teams in the female 4way competition and the best British teams in the open class shows a very clear picture: Girl Power.

Not counting XL, the best three teams from the United Kingdom competed in the female 4way category. In addition, three of the best four UK teams in the open class had female team members, as well: Claire 'Sparky' Scott and Helen Arnold for SonicNutz, Jenny Buckle for Eclipse, Karen Nielsen for Hyrrokkin.

Bodyflight Isis	Kaizen

All three UK teams in the female 4way category outscored the British teams in the open class, and Satori Chix won or tied the highscores for all ten rounds. SonicNutz was the only open class team who managed to match the Satori Chix pace at a few rounds. It was Bodyflight Isis who gave Satori Chix the best competition throughout the first six rounds.

An interesting fact is that Kaizen never won or tied any of the UK highscores for the ten rounds and still finished ahead of SonicNutz. Kaizen's new lineup for the 2013 season had an extremely clean and solid 10-round performance.

Satori Chix, with former ISB Air Remscheid member Petra van Osterveld in the lineup, has no plans for the 2013 season, while Bodyflight Isis wants to win the UK Nationals 2013 and compete at the World Championship of Formation Skydiving 2014. Kaizen has the same goal and starts the 2013 season closer to the top contenders than they might have expected. Satori has not announced any plans for this year yet.