^{The flying started on the Saturday at the early time of 8 o’clock, as there was a large entry of 45. There was a very strong team of  7 from the Ukraine which included the current World Champion and the second in the world. The Russians were absent as so were the excellent Dutch National team. The Wakkermans could not attend this comp as Loet was having a heart operation. It is rumoured that the operation was the result of a Swedish protest last year in which they argued that they suspected Loet of being a cybernoid and having no heart at all. Well it had to be checked, and I will keep you posted of the result.}

^{The competition
The combat was of average quality except for the 2 Ukrainians Chorny and Milenin who looked a class better than everybody else. Graham had an excellent second bout against the German Herbert where he totally dominated him from start to finish.}

^{We finished the second round just as dusk was approaching but the organisers decided to start the third round and Graham was drawn against Top Gun Chorny. Graham was struggling, then took all the streamer in one, and although Graham was slightly up on ground time Chorny still had plenty of time and soon got his necessary 2 cuts for a relatively easy win which would put Graham out of the comp. Unfortunately for Chorneyy in the failing light and the dark backdrop of trees the scorers only saw one of his cuts and therefore made Graham the winner.}

^{Another impressive notch on Grahams handle.}

^{We had much to celebrate that night. We were all still in the comp. Mike had 2 lives and the others all had one. Graham was a world Champ beater and the Ukrainians were not talking to us.}

^{The next morning was cold and damp but our spirits were raised as we all won in this third round. It was in the 4th round that the dream started to turn into a nightmare. Graham went out to a German and Pete went out to a Ukrainian who was built like a T 34 tank. Mike was drawn against Chornyy, took all the streamer in one and lost his first life. Only Mervin won in this round.}

^{In the 5th round Mervin won again. Mike was drawn against the second best Ukrainian Milenin where he repeated his great trick, took the whole streamer in one, and lost.}

^{The Semi-Finals
The first semi-final was perhaps the most interesting bout of the competition. We had the World Champ Chorny against his student and Ukrainian Junior Yuvenko. Chorny started well by dominating the junior but he took the entire streamer in 2 cuts. Chorny still looked very confident as he was still faster and he started his very efficient defending by flying low, tight turns and constantly moving around the edge of the circle. But it soon turned out that he was overconfident as the junior just kept following as best as he could and leaned over Chornyys back to reach. Although Yuvenko was considerably slower he doggedly kept following until he eventually got the 3 cuts he needed to win. Chorny was in shock.}

^{In the other semi-final we saw Mervin lose to Milenin when he picked up Mikes trick and took all the streamer in one. There was a fly off for 3rd place which neither pilot seemed that bothered about but Mervin beat Chornyy to bring a bit of honor to the Brits and to stop the Ukrainians from getting a clean sweep of all the trophies.}

^{The Final
The Final between Milenin and Yuvenko turned out to be very strange. After about 30 seconds there was a mid air and silence. They both launched their second models but after about another 30 seconds there was another big mid air and both came down again.}

^{At this point Thomas the circle marshal blew his whistle and disqualified Milenin for line tangling.}

^{This seemed very odd as nobody had seen anything untoward and especially as we had witnessed some rather blatant line tangling earlier in this competition.}