Roger,

Great to see how well the Juniors did this year. Not only Cody and the rest of the U.S. contingent, but the Polish sportsmen, as well as the Germans and other European countries, including Israel.

However, what seems perplexing is that our British cousins, and other hotbed junior European countries did not compete. Too expensive, too far to travel, no more juniors?

Even China did not attend--maybe too preoccupied with the Olympics, or they conscripted the juniors to act as tour guides.

Serbia had been a hotbed (one sportsman) for many years, as were some of the other former Yugoslav states. Maybe they can only handle one free flight program each year, and this one was reserved for the Indoor world champs to be held later this month.

I would like to hear from "those in the know" from these countries why participation did not take place. I also look forward to hear some great reports (and photos/video) from the juniors, their parents and supporters, including contest organizers and officials. There should be some great stories to pass on.

A job well done (from my perspective), and hope that it encourages more participation in the future.

Fred T.

Editorial comment.

Fred, I think a key factor is the effort that people put into supporting the Junior program. If we look at the USA there is clearly a big effort by 'teachers' such as Art Ellis and Rocco Ferrario to support and enourage other besides thier own familes. Both of these have spent many hours working with young people on aeromodelling activites. In addition there are others who help the Junior program like George Batiuk, The Van Nests, the Gewains, Walt Ghio, Jim Parker, Bob van Nest, Bill Vanderbeek,etc  Going through that list it is individual people, not the AMA or NFFS. The national assocuation and the specialinterst group are very supportive of our junior activies and often come up with creative ideas, however they both have a very large membership to support so the time they can devote is is much less thn is needed to run a program like ours. The USA is really the only country outside of Europe that actively paticipates. The junior program is such that most times a parent or adult mentor accompanies the sportsman. All who have done that have always had a great time but it increases the cost. This is going to make participation tougher in the future for USA juniors with fall in the dollar. If we look at the major FAI events we see the juniors socialzing as well as flying. Even though we always need more flyers we have reached enough of a critical mass that it makes a group that wants to interact socially. In spite of the fact the our country is large and the other they meet at World Champs and World Cup events are geographically far away, and with their studies and other distractions  they're Texting, e-mailing and talking with each other, 

Looking at other counties there is people in Israel whi support a junior glider program as I work with them on magic timers. From talking to other's Poland, France, Russia and the Ukraine are also countries where there is a significant program to support junior flying and it is reflected in the results.

You mentioned Pera Kolic in your e-mail.  Pera is somewhat of a contraversial figure but what is not generally known is that he was very successful in raising sponsorship money to help the Jugoslav junior program. The reason why Pera often took photos at prize givings etc was to show the sponsors back home results.  This program provided coaching,  models and travel assistance to quite a number of young sportsmen.

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Sporting Quote for the Week

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Roger Morrell