Wednesday July 11, 2001
    The morning's clear blue sky and sharp sunlight chases away yesterday's doubters and it looks like today's conditions may be the best of the whole race week. Today's morning briefing, for understandable reasons, takes place at 10 a.m. and it is decided to drive up the starting ground of Golte-Boskovec. Even after the walk up to the starting ground before noon, the sky is still clear and the humidity noticeably less.

    The number of pilots as opposed to yesterday has thinned a bit. Except for Petr Dvorak, who to save himself from having to predict bad weather, headed home instead, also missing are Slovak pilot Michal Orolin. I don't see Radek Simonik anywhere and even Karel "Charlie" Vejchodsky and some others are gone.



    The announced discipline today is 35 km long and will have a total of four turning points. The goal line is prepared near the camp by the village of Varpolje. The hour-long start window is open today at 12:30 p.m. and after 8 minutes have elapsed Slovenian pilot Susa Primoz takes off. The dilemma between later, stronger thermics and the unpleasant possibility of the wind picking up speed is resolved by most by waiting. But by then small clouds begin to appear above the start.



    The main wave of take offs today begins after 1 p.m. and for now the leading racer of the overall placing, Tomas Brauner, takes off ten minutes before the closing of the window, just after Radek Vecera and Ondra Dupal.





    Catching on is relatively hard work today and the risers are extremely turbulent. Some forceful cores with speeds of 7m/s can be turned up to heights of around 2,300 meters.





    The tactic of a later start turns out not to be the best choice for today. A southwest wind gradually picks up to 8m/s and begins to complicate the reaching of the last turning point, to which you have to fly against the wind.

    Benefiting from this situation is Susa Primoz, who flies through this area almost an hour before the rest. So he flies over the goal line not only first, but in the shortest time. The point gain takes him up to second place in the overall placing of the race. Twenty five minutes later another Slovenian, Jurij Vidic lands and half an hour after that Ondra Dupal along with Polish pilot Wojciech Maliszewski on his heels appear above the goal line. Eleven minutes later Radek Vecera and Marcin Tobiszewski reach the goal.

    For Radek Vecera, who had until now been at second place in the overall placing, flying into the goal more then 30 minutes before Tomas Brauner means a successful removal of the point difference and simultaneously victory in the race overall. As can be seen on the results list, Radek flies on a parachute called Avax RX from Gradient. But what can't be seen is that he bought a new Arrow seat for this season from Karpo Fly, which he cannot praise enough.






    With some delay, Tomas Brauner, Mirek "Radar" Stehula and Tonda Pallas fly into the goal. Tomas' big delay and the excellent time achieved by Susa Primoz mean the drop of the currently leading Tomas Brauner to third place, while second is held by Susa Primoz after Radek Vecera in first.






    And because it is the last day of the race, the results are quickly evaluated so that announcement of the winners can take place tonight along with distribution of prizes. Rewarded are not only the victors of the overall placing, but even the best women pilots, lead by Petra Krausova Martina Cerna and Lucie Tvrdikova. Of course also included are the three teams of Gradient II, Gradient I and SKY Flare.






    The champion of the Czech Republic cannot be declared, because the required three disciplines were not flown. The race results are valid though and the points are included in the ranking system.

    It is necessary to add that in addition to the organizing company SKY Paragliders, the competition was also sponsored by MAC Para Technology and JoJo Wing. And a little surprise tidbit for the end, altogether 12 participants in the race left the camp without paying and the sympathetic Jurij Kolenc today automatically sees bitterly the amount of 20,000 Czech Crowns before his eye whenever the Czech Republic is mentioned to him.