As the world watched Olympians fight for and win medals in China this week and last, one of Vicksburg’s own was winning a world championship a little closer to home.

Nicholas Manton, 20, and his drum and bugle corps, Phantom Regiment, won Drum Corps International’s World Championship at the finals in Bloomington, Ind., during the weekend.

The elite Phantom Regiment drum corps is based in Rockford, Ill., and includes about 130 members in percussion, brass and color guard sections. Members generally range in age from 17 to 21 and, from May to August, their lives are completely given over to practice and performing.

“It was totally worth it,” Nicholas said. “I wouldn’t trade it for anything – coming off the field, knowing you’ve just performed the best show in the world.” A 2006 graduate of Clinton High School, Nicholas lives in Vicksburg with his father, Vicksburg High School teacher and coach Kevin Manton. In the fall, he will begin his junior year at the University of Southern Mississippi, where he is already back playing drums at band camp.

Phantom Regiment entered the quarterfinal competition Thursday, ranked fourth and then moved up one place each night in order to nab the championship, winning almost by a drum beat – 98.125 to the Blue Devils’ 98.1. “It was the first time we beat the Blue Devils all year,” Nicholas said. The Phantom Regiment defeated 11 teams on the final night of competition.

It was the team’s second championship, but first as sole winner, having tied in 1996 with the Blue Devils, based in Concord, Calif. Nicholas’ percussion section won the prestigious Fred Sanford High Percussion Award, the group’s second in three years, after finishing first in quarterfinals, semifinals and finals, scoring 19.9 points of 20. Phantom Regiment also won the High General Effect Award and the annual Spirit of Disney Award.

After the win was announced, Nicholas and his band mates grouped on the field, received their medals and staged an encore performance of their show, “Spartacus,” that included works by Richard Strauss and Aram Khachaturian.

“It’s band basically 24/7 for weeks,” Kevin Manton said of his son’s summer. “These kids are really tied down, really committed to what they are doing.”

In May Nicholas spent a week in Dallas at music camp, then a month in Rockford practicing before going on tour with the corps. The group logged about 13,000 miles on the bus over the summer, performing at the Rose Bowl, Invesco Field in Denver, the Georgia Dome and other venues from Oregon to Tennessee to South Dakota, even in Hattiesburg.

“The first two weeks on tour are rough because you sleep on the bus every night,” Nicholas said. “We spent four to eight hours every night on the bus. Then once we got to the next place, before rehearsal we might sleep for two to four hours on the floor, on air mattresses.” They showered in gym locker rooms.

Nicholas plays a set of drums known as quad, or tenor drums. The set consists of five snare drums – not four that the name would suggest – and weighs about 50 pounds. “The tempos are 200 beats per minute, and you’re running around the field for 11 minutes for the show.” They wear long-sleeved, white jackets and pants with a bronze, gold and silver baldric, black and silver gauntlets and plumed helmets. “It’s extremely warm in those things,” Nicholas said.

He’s played the drums since fifth grade, and got hooked early on the idea of drum corps after watching a tape of a finals competition. He first auditioned for Phantom Regiment before the 2007 performance season. He did not make the corps at that time, but joined another group. Later, Phantom Regiment had an unexpected opening and asked him to join, but Nicholas felt he’d made a commitment to the other group and honored it. He auditioned again the fall of 2007 for this year’s corps and was selected. Because of the timing of his birthday, he’s eligible to play for two more years and is fully committed.

At Southern Miss, Nicholas is majoring in music education and hopes to teach percussion in high school or college or perhaps both. “He has already taught individual drum lessons to help prepare the kids here and at Warren Central,” his dad said.

Besides the time commitment, to enter the finals Nicholas had to raise $2,275 – about a third of the total annual cost per member, according to the corps’ Web site. Members also have to pay for monthly visits to Rockford for weekend music camps before the training and performance season begins.

Drum Corps International is a nonprofit organization that calls itself Marching Music’s Major League and features three divisions of drum and bugle corps. Phantom Regiment is one of more than 20 world class corps members of DCI. It was founded in 1956 as the Rockford Rangers and reorganized and renamed in 1967. The corps has been competing at the world-class level since 1974.