posted Aug 20th, 2009 - The NSL News goes back to the Russian Nationals 2009, which had its coverage between August 3 and 7. Black Cat won with a 20.9 average after ten rounds, three points ahead of archrival Skylight Barkli with three Sky Panthers. Kaktus Hunter won the bronze medals after a jumpoff with Cross Road.

The details of this competition were already covered with the three meet stories. Most of the videos are now available for reviews, as they have been uploaded to the Russian version of YouTube.

The story on 4 August 2009 mentioned that Kaktus Hunter lost four points due to center point violations in Round 2 and showed the score sheet. These infringements during the inter of Block 1 (Snowflake - Offset) can now be reviewed and also commented on NSL's Facebook discussion podium.

The videos also show how Black Cat lost the four points in the same round. The camera angle did not allow the judges to clearly evaluate the first four formations and maneuvers after the exit.

Black Cat still won the competition and the team's first national championship title.

Vasiliy Korotkov, Alexandr Kvochur, Alexei Minaev and Evgeniyy Stashchenko are now Russia's national team of 2009, but it was still unclear whether the team will compete at the FAI World Cup 2009 or not.

All ten rounds of Black Cat can be reviewed on the embedded video. The following links lead to the videos of other Russian teams that competed at the national championship: Skylight Barkli, Gradient Alpha, Cross Roads.

The NSL News story on 16 July 2009 had reported that Kaktus Hunter and Ocean 5 joined forces once in a while to do some 8-way jumps at the end of their 4-way training days. The same story included one of the "Ocean Kaktus" 8-way videos.

There was not much of an 8-way competition at the national championships this year, as only one round could be completed due to the same weather situation that had already bothered the 4-way competition. However, one completed round is enough to determine a winner according to the current IPC rules, and the three registered Russian 8-way teams completed that one round.

Ocean Kaktus was one of the three teams, Gradient Alpha and Contour were the other two 4-way teams that formed an 8-way lineup for the national championship.

The 8-way video shows a very painful start of the 8-way competition for Kaktus Hunter member Ekaterina Kharitonova. The collision with Ocean 5 member Dmitry Komkov at the beginning of Block 13 (Satellite - Satellite) broke her nose right at the beginning of the jump. She continued and found her way back into the sequence, but it was obviously very diffcult to focus on the competition jump, while the blood is flowing over the broken visor of the helmet...

The Gradient Alpha/Contour combination won the first round (14 - 10), as Ocean Kaktus was just trying to get through the jump and then fix up Ekaterina Kharitonova's nose. The brave female Kaktus Hunter came back with her 8-way lineup and won Round 2 by three points (13 - 10). However, Round 2 was not completed by all three teams, and Gradient Alpha/Contour won the Russian 8-way championship.

Kaktus Hunter and Gradient Alpha/Contour will both compete at the FAI World Cup 2009 in the Czech Republic. Ekaterina Kharitonova said that she is fine and that she will be ready for the international competition.

Russia's 8-way team will not be as well prepared as other Russian 8-way teams of the past.

Contour member Janna Kazakova, former JetBats member, said that her 8-way teams made only four training jumps before the national championship. Gradient Alpha/Contour goes to the Czech Republic for an "adventure and a great experience".

Two former Russian world class 8-way competitors, Vladimir Arutunov and Alena Chistova, plus 4-way veteran Sergey Yalpaev will be guiding the Russian 8-way team through the competition in Prostejov.