posted Sep 8th, 2005 - The NSL News has collected a lot of footage for the new feature of NSL-TV, the interviews and live scenes of the event. It is difficult to decide what to use and where to begin.

The award ceremony for 4-way took place Wednesday night. USPA President Glenn Bangs was on the microphone and introduced the teams and officials. He opened the ceremony with the presentation of one of the highest USPA awards for special achievements. Freefall photographer Mike McGowan was honored and touched when he accepted the "Meritorious Achievement Medal" from Chris Needels and Glenn Bangs.

The USPA President and anchor of the awards show also asked Chief Judge June "June Bug" Urschel to present her judging panels to the audience.

The judges had a lot of work at the USPA Nationals 2005 since 80 4-way teams was a new record participation in US Formation Skydiving history. The days were very long for the three 5-judges panels, and the teams and competitors showed their appreciation for the hard work in the judging rooms.

Judge veterans Judy Celaya and Rina Gallo were still in good spirits at the end of the third working day as the picture shows.

The Southwest Skydiving League had its own award ceremony on the same stage leading into the USPA presentation.

SSL Director Pamela Stevens proudly announced the winners of this year's SSL Grand Prize, which is the SSL sponsorship of the SSL winners to the NSL Championship at SkyQuest 2005.

Perris Storm in the AAA Class and Arizona Divewerkz in the AA Class have the opportunity to accept the SSL Grand Prize and travel to Florida in November.

SSL Director Pamela Stevens also presented several certificates of the NSL SkyVenture Orlando Competition 2005 to Southwest Skydiving League teams that had won tunnel time this year and not received the certificates yet. Along with the certificates came good news for the SSL teams. Melanie Conatser-Peschio, owner of Skydive Perris and SkyVenture Perris, plans to re-join the NSL SkyVenture Competition for the 2006 season.

The award ceremony included the medal presentation for the three USPA competition classes (Open, Advanced, Intermediate) and also the presentation of the team that will represent the USA at IPC's Women's Class competition at the world meet next year, Perris Synchronicity. The NSL News had met with two team members earlier on Wednesday for an interview. Kim Brandt and Becky Broccato explained the team's difficulties prior to the competition in Perris when hurricane Katrina wiped out Becky Broccato's home town New Orleans. This interview will follow later today.

Scenes of the award ceremony can be viewed by clicking here.

DeLand Fire's Shannon Pilcher and Ian Bobo were not done with the competition in Perris yet after the 4-way award ceremony. Usually, many of the 4-way Formation Skydiving competitors continue with 8-way and then 10-way and 16-way on the following days. Not so for the members of the Performance Designs Factory Team. The Canopy Piloting event was on the agenda for Ian Bobo and Shannon Pilcher on Thursday morning.

Both are on the very top of the swooping rankings, and Ian Bobo recently won the World Cup in Austria. The combination of 4-way and Swwooping seems to work very well for the Fire members. The NSL News captured Ian Bobo's first round at the swooping pond in Perris for NSL-TV, and Ian Bobo also took a few minutes for an interview right after the jump.

The NSL-TV interview with Ian Bobo includes pictures of a TV production camp in the background. ESPN visited the competition site in Perris this morning to include the event in a live morning show in New York. Scenes and interviews switched back and forth between swooping and 8-way competition, and viewers reported a great show.

Round eight of the 8-way competition is almost complete, and Airspeed added another point to the lead. The 6-point difference to the Golden Knights after eight rounds should be enough to carry the lead easily through the two remaining rounds. Stay tuned.