posted Feb 13th, 2011 - The Valentine's Meet 2011 is over, and the last video updates from Eloy feature first the preparations of the teams on Sunday morning, then Rounds 9 and 10 of Arizona Airspeed and France Aerodyne Maubeuge.

This doesn't mean that the coverage is complete. There will be a comprehensive aftermath with more videos, evaluation, comments and direct feedback from the teams. In fact, the NSL News recorded live NSL Talk with both French national 4-way teams, in the 4-way Open Class as well as in the female 4-way category.

French coach Marin Ferre explained why the French national female lineup, with two reigning world champions and two new members, did not compete in Eloy this weekend. He said that the first jump at this training camp last week was also the first team jump for the new lineup.

Marin Ferre also explained why the performance of the French Open Class team, with three reigning 4-way world champions, was not at the performance level that many observers expected, according to the poll prior to the competition.

The French team approached the Valentine's Meet very much like a training competition. They trained hard, even on the day right before the start of the meet. They also did not slow down when the meet was over and added several training jumps to the two meet rounds on Sunday.

Even this was not the end of a long day. Coach Marin Ferre had also reserved an hour of windtunnel training at 6:00 PM. Both French teams will share the flying time, and the NSL News camera will capture parts of this indoor training.

The training day will be over at 7:00 PM, however, bed time will still be much later tonight. Arizona Airspeed has invited their French friends for a cookout at Thomas Hughes' house in Casa Grande. In fact it is actually Eliana Rodriguez' house that Thomas Hughes has rented for his time in Eloy.

Marin Ferre is still the only competitor who has defeated Airspeed on their home turf at the Valentine's Meet. The new Airspeed lineup, on the other hand, did not hesitate to improve the best Valentine's meet average from 24.6 to 25.0 after ten rounds.

The French 4-way world champions have realized that they have to work really hard if they want to keep up with the new Airspeed lineup, and they have begun working on it. The intensive training shows that they take the situation very seriously. They are even staying in Eloy's free DZ bunkhouse to save more money for more training. Marin Ferre said that the Shamrock Showdown 2011 will already see a different French performance...

The videos of the live NSL Talk will be uploaded later.