posted Mar 24th, 2006 - Round two of the FSL Shamrock Showdown 2006 has already been available for viewings for a few days. As at other special NSL News event reports in the past, a separate NSL-TV page also offers access to the previous rounds of the competition.

The last NSL News story, which came along with the video files of round one and a story of the Austrian team Monkey Circus, mentioned that the Italian team Sinapsi PD visited at the NSL office a few days after the competition in DeLand. Pete Allum (Tail), Arianna deBenedetti (Center Outside), Luca Marchioro (Center Inside) and Livio Piccolo (Point) answered NSL News questions, while team videographer Luca Poretti was already on his way back to Italy. The video of the interview can be viewed by clicking here.

The Sinapsi members evaluated their own performance and explained that lack of confidence had held them back in the past. The great start into the competition of the Shamrock Showdown provided the confidence level the team needed to come up with this world class performance.

This Sinapsi line-up seems to like to be on top of the field as the leader. Other teams prefer to come from behind, but the Italian team feels comfortable on top of the leaderboard and likes to feel the pressure coming from behind. The Sinapsi members also evaluated the other teams and the competition and gave an outlook of the time from here to the World Meet in August in Germany.

The NSL on-line judges all over the world had already the opportunity to look for a few other infringements in round two. DeLand Fire lost three more points to Sinapsi PD, and one point got lost when the completion of Block 22 (T - Chinese T) on the second page did not happen simultaneously.

Additional little flaws here and there stopped DeLand Fire from getting even close to the Italian team in this round. In fact, even Team Fastrax and Norway Arcteryx both tied DeLand Fire's raw score, as well, and ended up with one more point on the scoreboard (15-pointers). Fire's 14-pointer was the team's lowest score of the meet.

DeLand Fire's lack of consistency in DeLand was easy to explain. The US national team had not trained at all with the original line-up ever since Natasha Montgomery suffered a compression fracture of her 2nd and 3rd vertebra in January. DeLand Fire trained a few days the week prior to the Shamrock Showdown and was not very well prepared.

In fact, Natasha Montgomery's recovery time had just come to the point where she felt ready to begin skydiving again. She did not feel like she was really ready for a competition. However, she took the meet as a special challenge, and DeLand Fire decided to join the competition, even without the proper preparation. The first two rounds only reflected the situation where the team came from.

Additional infringements in round two could be found at the slates of Optic Nerve (-1), Eva's Revenge (-1), the Czech Zero Team (-1), Skydive City (-1) and the Sirens (-2). The all-female team visiting from the Chicagoland Skydiving Center for a winter training camp joined the AA Class competition with a new line-up.

Barbra Carqueville (Center Inside), Susan Crowe (Tail), Janette Lefkowitz (Point), Karyn Rees (Point) and Brad Vansina on camera competed in DeLand and went through the whole AA Class dive pool for the first time with the 2006 line-up. The Sirens had competed in the A Class throughout the regular 2005 season and had joined the Intermediate/AA Class competition at the USPA Nationals 2005 without Janette Lefkowitz in the line-up.

The CSC Sirens oversaw that the rules for Block 11 (Photon - Photon) require a backward rotation for both pieces. The Sirens rotated the front piece forward, while the rear piece turned according to the rules. The judges could not approve the team's maneuver for Block 11 on two occasions within working time, and two points had to be deducted.

By the way, the NSL Rules page now offers download options for the current complete dive pool.