posted Aug 16th, 2011 - Polaris, the Norwegian national team in the female 4way category, had the shortest window of all teams between finishing up at the World Cup 2011 and Round 1 of the national championships. Last Wednesday was the first day of the competition at the Tønsberg Fallskjermklubb in Norway.

The event featured once again the annual reunion of the DeLand Norgies. Actually, the Norgies reunion has somehow turned into a double feature in the past two years. Three Norgies (Torstein Valen, Pal Kolbenstvedt, Lise Nansen) competed with Lise Nansen's husband Nikolai at the World Challenge 2010 before the original lineup with Carl-Erik Tuv won the gold medals at the Norwegian Nationals 2010.

This year, the complete original lineup competed at the Shamrock Showdown 2011 in March before defending the Norwegian gold medals successfully last week.

Norway Nationals 2011		Round 1	Round 2	Round 3	Round 4	Round 5	Round 6	Round 7	Round 8	Total	Avg
Rank	AAA Class	11,N,3	4,2,13	E,21,8	G,18,20	22,P,12	L,10,C,6	K,A,B,7	Q,19,O,1	Total	Avg
1	DeLand Norgies	17	14	18	17	16	16	26	20	144	18.0
2	Polaris	16	13	16	14	14	16	22	16	127	15.9
3	Ernie Bernie	6	8	9	6	4	6	9	10	58	7.3
4	Irony	4	5	5	5	4	4	7	6	40	5.0
5	Opp Ned Ut	4	5	4	2	5	2	9	6	37	4.6
Rank	A Class	t.b.d.	t.b.d.	t.b.d.	t.b.d.	t.b.d.	t.b.d.	t.b.d.	t.b.d.	Total	Avg
1	Swingers	11	13	14	10	20	13	13	-	94	13.4
2	KFP	16	12	13	11	18	11	9	-	90	12.9
3	Engleflass	12	13	9	11	17	11	9	-	82	11.7
4	M.O.I.S.T	10	11	3	8	15	7	12	-	66	9.4
5	Golden Lockpins	10	10	13	4	12	8	6	-	63	9.0
6	One Call	5	5	3	4	8	5	7	-	37	5.3
7	Absolute Fabulous	3	1	0	0	2	2	-	-	8	1.3

Polaris gave the Norgies a much better competition at this year's national championships. However, the 4way veterans, bronze medal winners at the World Championships of Formation Skydiving in 1999, 2001 and 2003, were still too strong and in good enough shape to fend off quite easily the much improved national team in the female category.

The Norgies won with a 19.4 average after seven rounds in 2010 where Polaris finished with a 14.9 average. The difference of 4.5 in average has now shrunk to 2.1 after eight rounds (18.0 - 15.9) last week. Both teams got obviously a little bit closer on both ends, as the Norgies don't train at all while Polaris had a busy 2011 season.

The intensive Polaris work with coach Steve Hamilton showed results with the bronze medals in Germany. Now it also brought the team closer to the Norgies who may be really challenged next year when Polaris will pick up the speed to get ready for the World Meet in Dubai. However, the DeLand Norgies are Norway's national champions of 2011.