Day 1 (August 17)
    The 14th HG World competition (class 1, flex wings) started today and from the first remarks I can intuit that the competition will be every day more fascinating. The first task of 92,6km turns out to be very fascinating due to the difficult take off conditions and the not easy conditions at goal. 23 pilots completed the task; some of the favourite pilots did not reach the goal like Paris Williams, Oleg Bondarchuck, Gerolf Heinrichs and John Durand Jr.

    Robert Reisinger, with the Laminar MR14, is the first of the 4 fastest pilots who reaches the goal, followed by Betinho Smidt (LitespeedS 4), Alex Ploner (Laminar MR14) and Manfred Ruhmer (Laminar MR14) who both achieve 3rd place. Due to a problem with the panel of his harness, Alex had to make his final glide in a not very aerodynamic flight position, but in spite of this he achieved the 3rd place. Christian Ciech, who is not so lucky, lands at 7,8km from goal and gets on the 26th position. Federico Bausone and Davide Guiducci are respectively on the 40th and 44th place having flown 80,4km and 80,2 km. After the 1st day the Italian team is on the 3rd place behind the Austrian and French team.


 Photo Flavio Tebaldi

 Photo Flavio Tebaldi

Manfred Ruhmer's comment:
    My strategy on the first day was to "only" make a good day result. In the beginning of a World Championship you can only lose a lot of points, which in fact happened to some pilots. The critical point was after the last turn point towards the goal, where you needed to raise again in order to reach the goal line. In fact, a lot of pilots landed after this last turn point. A few pilots, also the winner of the day Robert Reisinger, were very low (at less than 100 meters) when they found a "saving" thermal. At the last turn point I was a bit behind the gaggle and therefore I decided to change my flying route towards the right side of the goal line where I again almost reached the cloud base.

    On my way towards the goal I saw that some pilots already touched the ground and some others were very low but found a thermal. Even though I had enough height to make my final glide into goal, I decided to reach the other pilots in the thermal order to be 100% sure to reach the goal from the right side. If I would have gone straight to goal, I could have won the day with a little risk. But with this "security" variation I assured myself getting into goal.