The World Championships, 2004

This site was last updated on February 15, 2008.

In July 2004, the World Championships were held in the United States, in Muncie, Indiana.

57 contestants, including 9 juniors (nobody from Germany or the Netherlands, too bad).

The winner was Igor Trifonov, Russia, with a single loss (to Mervyn Jones). Indeed, it was a clean sweep for the Russians, winning 1st, 2nd, and 3rd, the team title, and the top junior.

Out after nine rounds

Alexander Shalaev, Russia (top junior)

Out after eight rounds (Faizov won the flyoff for 3rd place)

Boris Faizov, Russia
Peteris Brokans, Latvia

Out after seven rounds

Mervyn Jones, Great Britain
Mark Rudner, United States
Mike Willcox, United States

Out after six rounds

Gonzalo Garcia, Spain
Boriss Jalunins, Latvia
Mike Whillance, Great Britain

Out after five rounds

Timo Forss, Finland
Ben Johnson, Great Britain (junior)
Rudolf Konigshofer, Austria
Laura Leino, Finland
Glen Lewis, New Zealand
Peter Norrie, Australia
Aleksandrs Prokofjevs, Latvia
Chris Renton, New Zealand
Leonardo Silva, Mexico
Volodymyr Vesich, Ukraine

Here's a link to a large collection of photos by Ken Hargreaves (thanks to Neil Simpson).

Here are some pictures and commentary from Mike Willcox.

Alex Profski from the Latvia team came in 12th. The Latvian team was real strong this year taking 3rd in the team ranking. Peter Brokens took 4th place from Latvia and Boris Jaluniss, the 3rd team member, took 9th and also placed 3rd at the F2d with fast rules event.

U.S. team members David Owens and Mike Willcox testing and training at a secret training facility near Nashville with Instructor Mack Henry just before the world champs.

Alexie Topenov in Chicago was host to many of the teams coming from other countries. Many teams flew into Chicago and then drove down to Indiana for the world champs. Here in this picture you seem F2D team members from Austria, Russia, Finland, Latvia, the U.S., and Alexie the host who put them up at his house for the first night when teams just arrived. What a great host Alexie was to people visiting from other countries.

Stas Chorney, 2000 World Champ, and Mike Willcox, 2002 World Champ, at the Opening Ceremony

The Discovery Channel was out in force to film some of this event. If you look close on Mike's helmet you can see a camera that was strapped on for center circle action. Mike and Mark Rudner put on demostration flights for the Dicovery Channel.

Jari Valo (known as the fastest man in the world for F2D) is seen sitting here under the tent with the Americans catching some shade. Jari had a new version of the Zorro with special props from the Ukraine for his select customers. The new Zorro was found to have some minor problems with the crank and case this year. Jari says "don't worry, this will all be fixed next year." Out of the top 10 pilots, 3 were using Zorros: Mike Willcox, Mark Rudner, and Mervin Jones. The rest were using AKMs. AKM is a good, solid engine if you can get it. Asking price went up to over $300 this year and many people have been in line for over a year to get one.

Mark Rodgers from Tennesse was here at his first world champs, along with Lena Malkhina (translator for the Russian team), were working full time to help Mike Willcox get prepared. Last minute changes with the mechanics made it difficult for some of the U.S. team members to find support, but Mark Rodgers was ready and willing to help out any way he could.

Pat Willcox was the event director this year at the World Champs. At the time when he signed up for the position, his son wasn't the reigning World Champ, which made it a bit more interesting. All in all, there were a low number of incidents and Pat's crew did a great job of running the F2D portion of the World Champs.

Russian F2D team along with Mike Willcox are seen here. The Russian team showed great support for each of their team members when they were flying. If a Russian pilot was in a match, you could count on the rest of their team to be standing as close as possible with their flag, cheering them on.

A few of the U.S. team members are seen here catching a break from the sun

Mike Willcox, 2002 World Champ, passes off the torch to Igor Tripenov, the new F2D World Champ from Russia

The banquet after the World Champs

Fast Combat with F2D winner Stas Chorney from the Ukraine