posted Dec 8th, 2011 - The competition in the female 4way category at the 3rd Dubai Championship 2011 ended just as much without any surprises in the last round as it was in the Open Class competition. The experienced Bodyflight competitors from the United Kingdom showed that 4way experience can weigh in quite heavily, even for a pickup team with a lack of training. They dominated the competition over the Aerodyne Deep Blue Defenders almost as clearly as Aerodyne Aerokart took the Open Class over NMP-PCH Hayabusa. The French Open Class team won five of the eight rounds and gave away only one. Bodyflight won six rounds and gave away two.

Max Thiele reported that the British team did not take any chances in the last round and easily carried the victory over the finish line. He said that the team's approach to the last round showed that they were already celebrating the great trip to Dubai that ended up with a $40,000 check for Claire Scott, Sarah Smith-Cannon, Elizabeth Matthews, Julia Foxwell and David Head on camera.

The NSL News correspondent in Dubai added that the female 4way competition community can now only hope that the team will continue. However, chances are little that the same lineup stays together, and the female teams from France, USA, Germany, Norway may not be so unhappy about that...

3rd Dubai Championship 2011		Round 1	Round 2	Round 3	Round 4	Round 5	Round 6	Round 7	Round 8	Total	Avg
Rank	4way Women	L,C,P,20	K,M,6,15	G,19,H,11	2,10,E	13,9,5	O,7,3	B,21,16	4,1,22	Total	Avg
1	UK Team Blue	21 (-1)	22	16 (-1)	16 (-1)	18	19 (-2)	20	15 (-1)	147	18.4
2	France Aerodyne DB Defenders	19 (-1)	20	20	15	16	20	17	14	141	17.6
3	Russia Illusions	19 (-1)	18 (-1)	14 (-4)	14	11 (-2)	18 (-1)	15 (-1)	14	123	15.4

The Aerodyne Deep Blue Defenders continued with the tradition of the previous lineup that won the gold medals at the World Meet 2010 in Menzelinsk and was famous for the joyful approach to training and competition. Deep Blue was known as the laughing team.

The new lineup, which tries to defend the Deep Blue gold medals, showed their own humor after the defeat in Dubai and sent a video to the NSL News that shows their attitude after the meet in a media release for the skydiving world. The clip leaves a questionmark behind the Compressed Accordeon that Perrine Sanchez mentioned in the video release.

She must relate to Block 16 in Round 7. The NSL News hopes that team videographer Rémy Grandcler will also make the videos of the competition jumps available for the NSL News to lift the secret of the ominous Compressed Accordeon. He concluded the video clip with his promise to keep his eyes on the French girls.

Max Thiele indeed brought up a big question. What will the female UK 4way veterans do from here on? They used to dominate the female 4way competition and won gold medals in 2003, 2006 and 2008 before France took over. They can see after Dubai that the gold medals are once again very much in reach.

The obstacles are obvious. Julia Foxwell is a Satori member and already qualified to compete in the Open Class competition at the world meet in Dubai next year. Satori may not offer the potential to win a gold medal but surely scores significantly higher than the best female lineup. She also won her female gold medal already in 2006. Sarah Smith-Cannon has a successful player coach project with Aerodyne Bodyflight, together with Amanda Kemp. This lineup was the highest scoring female team at the UK Nationals 2011 and would compete for the country next year.

Claire "Sparky" Scott and Liz Mathews have currently no serious team commitments and would probably be available to continue next year. Time will tell what the British female world class competitors plan for the 2012 season.