Its CHIP!!!  Chip Hyde has won the 18th International Tournament of Champions!

Quique Somenzini zeroed much of his second unknown after reversing the direction of flight mid-sequence. He completed the remainder of the sequence, but everything after the reversal in maneuver #4 was scored a zero. Since Quique's first unknown was the winning flight of the round, and only the highest scoring Unknown, Known and Free are kept towards the day's final results, the error in the second Unknown had no impact on his third-place finish.

Jason Shulman lost his Extra during the second free. He performed a blender at the west end of the box but was on low rates. The Extra disappeared into the trees with a loud thud. Moments later black smoke rose from where the plane went down. The plane hit concrete and burned. Nothing on the ground was damaged but the plane is a total loss.

We are at the half-way point of the finals. One each of the Known, Unknown and Freestyle have been flown. The scores for only the first Known and Unknown are being made available. The results of the remaining rounds will be kept secret until the awards presentation late this afternoon. We will post complete final results and more photos tonight.

Due to time constraints, the awards for 8th through 21st were not presented at noon. They will be presented with the awards for the finalists at the end of the day.

Yesterday, we reported the best preliminary round Known score would carry into the finals. That is not correct. Today started fresh with no influence from the previous rounds.

Jason and Chip both presented some new elements in their first freestyles with new music. Christophe added a pyro-technic streamer "dispenser" to his Extra. It fired dozens of tiny streamers out away from the fuselage. He then dropped below the falling streamers and torque-rolled as they fell past the plane.

The next report will include the final results this evening.