posted Mar 5th, 2010 - The 4-way competition in Sweden has mostly been a battle of two teams for the top spot as the national team at the international events of the past years.

Team Spaï (Tobias Alsiö, Mikael Kaulanen, Ulf Liljenbäck, Mats Svensson) battled with Team 42 (Mattias Pålsson, Joar Stenkvist, Jens Thögersen, Andreas Wittbom) throughout the 2006 and 2007 season.

Team 42 had the last word at the Swedish Nationals 2006, won with a 15.1 average over Team Spaï (14.5) and competed for Sweden at the World Meet 2006. Team 42 finished in 11th place with a 16.2 average in Germany.

Team Spaï turned the table in 2007 after another exciting race in Sweden and competed as the national 4-way team at the World Cup 2007. Team Spaï finished in 10th place with a 15.5 average in Russia.

New team names appeared on the Swedish leaderboards in 2008. This time, Evolution (Martin Askelin, Emil Einarsson, Rickard Rodensjo, Felix Wallberg) and Blue Spirits (Johnny Andersson, Ulf Liljenbäck - Tail, Johnny Olsson, Jens Thögersen) were fighting it out for the Swedish 4-way slot at the World Meet 2008 in France.

Evolution lost the first two meets in Sweden (13.2 - 14.8 and 13.3 - 14.0) but won the 1st place at the Swedish Nationals 2008 (16.1 - 15.2) and traveled to France. Evolution finished in 15th place with a 15.0 average at the World Meet 2008.

Evolution came back in 2009 with a different lineup. Mikael Kaulanen replaced Martin Askelin. The NSL News reported on 12 January 2009 (Archives > 2009 > News > Search for "Evolution") that the Swedish skydiving community expected the battle between Evolution and Blue Spirits to be continued in 2009.

It did not happen, as Blue Spirits discontinued the teaqm project at the beginning of the 2009 season. Evolution was without serious competition in Sweden and was nominated early as the national 4-way team for the World Cup in the Czech Republic.

Evolution 2009 competed at the World Challenge 2009 (20.1) and attended the two Swedish Cup meets (15.0 - 18.8) before winning the Swedish Nationals with a 14.6 average. Evolution also set a new Swedish record for a single round with a 29-pointer in Round 6 of the July meet.

Maybe the lack of competition in Sweden last year made it too easy for Evolution to get to the World Cup in Prostejov, Czeck Republic. Fact is that the 13.5 average at the World Cup was the lowest Swedish result in a long time, which placed Evolution 18th on the final leaderboard.

Fact is also that Evolution is not coming back this year. However, two Evolution members (Mikael Kaulanen and Rickard Rodensjö) have formed a new team, together with two members of last year's Top Gun lineup (Seth Ericsson and Johan Karlsson).

Team Bardagi is planning to win this year's national championship and compete for Sweden at the World Championship of Formation Skydiving 2010. A training camp in DeLand in April with coach Solly Williams will prepare the new team for the 2010 season.

It will not be an easy road this year to win the Swedish tickets to Russia as Evolution had it in 2009. It happens that Blue Spirits is also coming back after a 1-year break, and it seems as if the 2-team race in Sweden is back on.

Two Blue Spirits members of 2008 (Johnny Andersson and Johnny Olsson) have joined forces with Kenneth Ericsson and former Evolution coach and DeLand Majik world champion of 2004, Joey Jones. Kenneth Ericsson was a Phenix member, the team that competed for Sweden at the World Cup 2002 (17.5) and the World Meet 2003 (16.8) with Mathias Nord, who then beame a member of the Norwegian national 4-way team Arcteryx.

The Blue Spirits 2010 lineup has the same goal as Bardagi. The team has already kicked off the 2010 training with a tunnel camp at Bodyflight Bedford and continues with outdoor training in Spain at the beginning of April. The new race in Sweden is on...