posted Sep 9th, 2014 - It's time to catch up with some topics that did not get enough attention during the FAI World Championship of Formation Skydiving 2014.

There has also been a high demand for videos of the competition. The online audience did not have many opportunities to see much of the actual competition action. Neither Omniskore nor FAI offered reviews of the competition jumps during or after the event.

NSL-TV uploaded several video clips, which brought the meet atmosphere and several of the participants to the audience, as usual. However, there was no direct access to the competition videos, and the Sun Path Products NSL News eventually contacted the teams directly. They kindly provided the original footage, and there is at least now the opportunity for reviews.

World Meet 2014		Rd. 1	Rd. 2	Rd. 3	Rd. 4	Rd. 5	Rd. 6	Rd. 7	Rd. 8	Rd. 9	Rd. 10	Rd. 11	T.	Avg
Rank	8-way Open Class	E,3,C,5	F,G,D,21	19,H,2	M,4,1	O,14,A,P	8,J,16	7,11,12	22,20,15	17,G,18	13,B,9	Q,10,N,L	T.	Avg
1	Golden Knights (US)	24	22	15	26	22	21	19	26	21	20	-	216	21.6
2	Barkli (RU)	19	18	13	25	14	16	16	19	18	13	20	191	17.4
3	Venturi (FR)	19	16	14	23	18	13	18	19	15	16	19	190	17.3
4	Microclim8 (UK)	14	14	11	15	12	13	12	15	12	13	-	131	13.1
5	M8Trix (NL)	15	13	11	17	11	13	13	15	10	12	-	130	13.0
6	Australia (AU)	12	13	11	18	11	12	12	12	10	12	-	123	12.3
7	Dubai Asaar (AE)	11	9	7	13	4	10	9	8	11	-	-	82	9.1
8	Maximum Ride (CA)	10	9	6	11	8	8	8	7	7	-	-	74	8.2

The competition jumps of NMP-PCH Hayabusa and Arizona Airspeed were made available earlier, and NSL-TV now follows up with videos of the 8-way competition.

There was not much opposition for the reigning world champions from the USA, the Golden Knights. The US Army team was mostly competing with their own standards and previous scores. France (Venturi) and Russia (Barkli) did not have enough training to get anywhere close to the Golden Knights.

The current Golden Knights lineup is looking at the scores of the previous one that finished with a 22.9 average at the Mondial Dubai 2012. Target is also the standing world record for a single round that the Golden Knights posted in 1997 with a 31-pointer.

The Golden Knights fell short of both targets this time, while still bringing back home the Excalibur 8-way sword. The opportunity for a new world record came up in Round 4, as the Sun Path Products NSL News reported on 25 August 2014. It did not happen this time, and the next opportunity is at the USPA Nationals 2014 next week.

The video of the French national 8-way team Venturi begins with Round 6 and shows the situation where the new lineup had trouble with the exit. It happened two rounds after the Golden Knights had a very similar problem at the same exit spot.

Venturi lost three points to Barkli in Round 6, while the Golden Knights still posted the highscore in Round 4 after the exit trouble. However, France recovered well after the mishap and forced Russia into a jump-off round for the silver medals. The Barkli veterans had the better nerves and won Round 11 by a point over the French youngsters.