posted Sep 19th, 2004 - The most exciting part of this year's national championship in Russia was the 8-way competition. Russia had only one very strong 8-way team in the last decade, which finally captured the 8-way sword Excalibur and the gold medals for Russia for the first time in 8-way history in 2001. The same team defended the gold medals in a nerve wrecking battle, including jump-off and tie-breaker, at the Mondial 2003 in France.

However, there was already ain interesting story behind the Russian 8-way situation in 2003. The winning Russian 8-way team was disbandoned after the success at the world meet in 2001. Sponsor Igor Sitnikov united most of the world champion team members in the new team Evolution Pro and became one of the team members. Evolution Pro performed well beyond expectations at the World Cup 2002 in Spain. The team progression stalled in 2003, and Sitnikov made a very brave decision not to jump with the team but call in members of the 2001 line-up. This turned out to be a very smart move since the team then defended the Russian gold medals successfully.

Evolution Pro of the 2004 season had a new line-up with three new members and only four members of the original team that won the 8-way world championship in 2001. Three other 2001 world champions have been members of the Sky Panthers in 4-way.

Earlier this year, and to many people's surprise, the Sky Panthers decided to form an 8-way team, as well, which included two more world champions of the 2001 line-up. Finally, all 2001 world champions are fully back in 8-way competition, but they are almost evenly divided between these two 8-way teams.

The 8-way competition at the Russian national championship was as close as the team line-ups would indicate. Both teams were tied in first place after eight rounds. Evolution Pro won four points in round nine and looked like the new champion. The SkyPanthers still fought back and reduced the deficit to one single point after round ten. However, Evolution Pro and four world champions of 2001 and 2003 will now represent Russia in Croatia.