WORLD CONTROL LINE CHAMPIONSHIPS 1998 for Seniors and Juniors Report by the International FAI Jury GENERAL The Championships were organised by the Federation of Aeronautical Sports of Ukraine August 24th to 30th in Kiev. Competition classes were F2A, B, C and D. SITE The event was held at the Chaika sports centre, venue of the 1992 W. Ch. The site features three asphalt-surfaced circles with safety fences for FZA, B and C respectively, a jury tower for F2C, and a building for officials, computer centre & Jury. For F2D there were ample grass areas for contest and practice circles, and a building for jurors, officials etc. All teams had covered, lockable pits for model storage and maintenance. The site is well laid our and excellent for this type of event. ACCOMMODATION and FOOD Competitors were accommodated in hotels of a varying price range. The standard was good to acceptable. Breakfast and dinner was served in the hotels, lunch at a restaurant close to the contest area. Quality was good, but initially there were numerous complaints about the insufficient amount of food served. This was improved towards the end of the event. ENTRIES This Championships was not as well supported as the two previous ones. There were a total of 181 senior and 24 junior competitors from 18 countries. The low number of juniors was a disappointment, the CIAM must find measures to encourage juniors to participate in CL W.Ch. WEATHER Weather was very cold; strong winds and some rain marred the competition. COMPETITION F2A This class was well organised and run without any specific problems. A safety hazard was experienced when the lines of a model broke and the model flew over the safety fence, crashing into the fence of the adjacent circle. Only the winner exceeded the 300km/h barrier. F2B This class was also well organised but problems were encountered with the judges. When the flights of the 15 finalists were about to start in the morning the chief judge Arthur Adamisin approached the organisers, refusing to judge before he was reimbursed for his travelling costs. The Jury President was then called to find a solution to the deadlocked situation. The organisers presented two faxes, in both of which Mr. Adamisin rescinded his right to reimbursement, referring to the fact that rather than accepting the airline ticket offered by the organisers, he preferred to make his own way to Klev. When the Jury President pointed this out to Mr. Adamisin he retracted somewhat, but still insisted that the organisers pay his airfare from Switzerland to Kiev. In order to make it possible to start the final, already an hour delayed, the organisers indicated acceptance of this solution. It must be stated that the conduct of Mr. Adamisin as chief judge was totally unacceptable, and the CIAM Bureau will have to decide wether he can be considered as judge far FAI events in the future. A further incident happened during the finals. The Russian and Ukrainian judges were on two occasions seen by a number of team managers to make notes between rounds of competitor's points at the scoreboard, and discussing these items. As a new ruling, in force at this W.Ch., forbids judges to indulge in any such activities, the Jury had no option but to disqualify the two judges, and thus their points were deleted from classification in the finals. It is possible that these two judges were not aware of this new regulation. That cannot be made an excuse for their behaviour, but the Jury saw a need to publicise this and similar rules better in the future. F2C This was again a well organised event. The F2C Jury was strict but fair, and they deployed a video camera which recorded all heats and finals. Thus any arguments aver warnings were quickly resolved, team managers were invited to see the recordings and that ended further discussion. New world records were established in F2C for both 100 laps and 200 Iaps. F2D In this class organisation left something to be desired on the first day, but from then onwards the combat contest ran fairly smoothly. A few protests were presented in the initial stages of this event but they were not upheld by the jury, and the proceeding soon settled down. The time schedule, however, was drawn out and F2D had to be completed one morning later than the other events because of rain and failing light. To avoid arguments and protests the Jury recommends to video record all F2D bouts in international competition in the future. FUEL SHIPMENTS AND CUSTOMS DUTY The US team had shipped their competition fuel at considerable cost by air freight. In Kiev the team was additionally asked for a large amount of customs duty. This led to a lot of hard feelings and arguments between the US team and the organisers. The Jury tried to mediate, alas with no success, and in the end the team refused to pay what they considered excessive duty and thus never received their fuel. The jury eventually came to the conclusion that the organisers were not in a position to sway the customs officials, who had routinely applied their tariffs to the combined cost of merchandise + transport. The lesson to be learned is that when shipping fuel or any other commodities to a championships, customs procedures and tariffs must be checked in advance, if such incidents are to be avoided in the future. BANQUET AND PRIZEGIVING In the afternoon of the final day the organisers offered a boat trip on the Dniepr river and picnic on an island, enjoyed by all participants. The prizegiving dinner took place in the dining room at the "Prolisok" hotel. Regrettably the room was not big enough to seat both participants and officials, so the latter were placed in a separate room. The prizegiving was rather chaotic, but in the end the winners got their medals, national anthems, flags and diplomas. The food was good and served with a lot of beverages. CONCLUSION A lot of work had gone into preparing this World Championships, and the organisers must get credit for trying very hard with limited resources. Some unfortunate incidents detracted from the overall impression of this event. It is, however, the unanimous opinion of the International Jury that this was a successful Championships, and deserving winners were established in all classes. The FAI Jury: Sandy Pimenoff Laird Jackson Boris Krasnorutski