Russians walk away with gold at the 2013 FAI Young Artists Contest

At the Annual Meeting of the FAI Aviation and Space Education Commission, the International Jury of the FAI Young Artists Contest had the difficult task of choosing the winners of the 2013 edition whose theme was "My Favourite Airsports".

Competition was intense, with 110 paintings received from 14 FAI Country Members (Australia, China, Czech Republic, France, India, Japan, Poland, Romania, Russia, Serbia, Switzerland, Turkey, Ukraine, USA). In the end 9 paintings were picked as the winners, 3 of them turning out to be from Russian artists.

All winners will be awarded an FAI gold, silver or bronze medal and a diploma on the occasion of the FAI General Conference or in their countries.

Junior Category (Ages 6 - 9)

1. Igor PASTUSHKOV (Russia) - see painting above
2. Masaya TSURUTA (Japan)
3. Evdokia BOGACHEVA (Ukraine)

Intermediate Category (Ages 10 - 13)

1. Iliya SKOBARO (Russia)
2. Sky WATERS (USA)
3. Chelsey WEN (USA)

Senior Category (Ages 14 - 17)

1. Svetlana KORABELNIKOVA (Russia)
2. Haruna SUZUMURA (Japan)
3. Madoka ABE (Japan)

FAI Members and Services Manager Ségolène Rouillon, who helps FAI Young Artists Contest Coordinator Suzie Gebb in the organisation of the competition, said, "I am always impressed by the quality of the entries we receive here at the FAI Head Office; as the competition is first organised nationally by our Members, we only receive the national winners paintings, which represent a fraction of all those sent to our Members: I have been told that countries such as Turkey received more that 4000 paintings ! Although it is great to see such massive participation, we can always do better, and we would be happy to see even more FAI Members take part in the contest next year, as it is a great way for them to engage with youngsters and draw them to the world of air sports."

The FAI warmly congratulates the winners of the 2013 FAI Young Artists Contest and thanks all the FAI Members for organising the competition in their countries and all the young painters for their participation.

• All the pictures of the winning artworks are available here.

 The theme of the 2014 contest will be published later this month on the CIEA web pages.