posted Sep 13th, 2003 - Russia was still in the defensive mode in round eleven, the jump-off that was supposed to be the tie-breaker. However, the defending world champion managed to pick up the speed enough to finish with the same score as Airspeed after a slow start. The crowd knew instantly what another tied round would mean for the World Championship. Russia had successfully defended the 8-way Excalibur. The rule book says that the highest score of the competition determines the winner if a jump-off does not break the tied situation. And Russia had the highest score of the meet with their 26 points in round five.

Russia was very fortunate that the fastest round of the meet happened at a time when the team's performance was very strong. The 26 points in round five was the beginning of a Russian series of four very good jumps that separated the U.S. and the Russian team by a total of four points. When the U.S. team began to battle back in round eight, the Russian pace and aggression decreased. However, the 26 points of round five were already on the scoreboard. And the remaining sequences did not allow a higher score anymore. Russia succeeded in not loosing the meet in round ten and also keeping it up in the jump-off round. And then it was the score of the fifth round that finally brought the gold medal and Excalibur back to Russia. Congratulations and thanks to Airspeed and Russia for the most exciting competition in history.