The End....

Well, now THIS blog entry is really late, but I still hope some of you will not have lost the faith in your bloggers knowing that something would be posted about it: about THE END.

The last day was very very hectic and we did not have time to make the nice entry with all the details, still my "blogging colleagues" (the scorers Alex and Isca) managed to post the immediate important info.

On Friday (last competition day) the cloud cover, as forecasted, did raise above launch and the day became flyable. There was a great concern about the wind therefore, the decision to fly was made later than usual. The atmosphere was tense, decisions had to be made very carefully. Some people thought it would be impossible for the day to improve, some others thought it would be possible. Me, I just believed hard enough that pilots would get the chance to get in the air one more time; I believed the sun would shine.

The idea on the last comp day, is to set a shorter task with goal not too far away and easy retrieve in order to have all pilots in early. Unfortunately, with the strong N-NW winds that day, pilots could only be sent to the flatlands. Some pilots commented that the conditions were very rough and others said it was OK. In the end 50 pilots flew the 84.4kms that day with the fastest time 1hr34mins and the slowest 2hrs43mins.

TEAMS: The Italians, 2nd place until that day, knew exactly what they wanted: First place for their team. Up on launch you could feel that they were going for it! I spoke to a couple of members and they agreed they needed to "attack" and push hard, as a team, to beat the "Mighty Austrians" and they did!!!

The "Azurri" dressed in green stood up on the highest step of the podium to receive their gold medals. They flew well as a group making sure of having 3 good scores, sometimes their strongest pilots would not make it to goal, but another team-mate would make sure they scored well.

INDIVIDUAL: Heinrichs flew well making sure his closest rival would not get too far in front, assuring himself the desired title: EUROPEAN CHAMPION 2010-2012. He flew consistently good throughout the whole comp, he did not make any major mistakes; he was at goal every single day, sometimes first sometimes not, but ALWAYS among the top places.

Tom Weissenberger was not entirely sure if he wanted to try and gain more than the 125 points or so that separated him from beating Gerlof. If he tried to "attack" and failed, he could drop down and miss the podium...He was tempted, very tempted. In the previous days he had been on fire closing up on Gerolf gaining more than 125points on him, it could've been possible. Still when I spoke to him at goal that last day, he said he really thought about it, but it is very hard to fly in front and attack on a blue day, the conditions were not easy for the job so he decided to make sure he was getting his silver medal and scoring for the team! So, there you are, Austria getting Gold and Silver - individual and Silver as a Team.

Attila Bertok (HUN) came in 3rd closely followed by Mario Alonzi (FRA). He was very close to the 3rd place (5 points) and maybe, with a little bit of luck with a scoring problem (on another pilot's track) on the last day, he could've gotten it...Tough one.

It was a good and exciting competition with 9 racing days and an excellent level. Pilots trying their best, learning and improving. Organizers making BIG efforts and working HARD to give their guests the best; Team Leaders, Drivers and Fans supporting the event. Once more, a great party is over, leaving us with memories and experiences to add to our "books of life", hopefully making us better people.

Thank you all for being there personally or virtually, for being a part of it. To those who followed us on this blog, thanks for your interest; we hope to have provided information, insight and images to keep you up to date on the developments.

See you somewhere, sometime soon in some beautiful place on this Earth!!!

Regards,

The Blogging Team: Alex, Isca & La Nube.

FINAL RESULTS

FINAL RESULTS HERE

TASK 9

Results Task 9 here.
Updated Overall Results here.
Updated Team Results here.
Traks Task 9 here.

Team Results (Provisional)
1st Italy 22826 pts.
2nd Austria 22642 pts.
3th Switzerland 22348 pts.

Overall (Provisional) After 1044 km flying
1st Gerolf Heinrichs (AUT)
2nd Thomas Weissenberger (AUT)
3th Attila Bertok (HUN)

Mario Alonzi (FRA) won the Task 9
50 pilots at Goal in Calaf

Task 9: Coll D'Ares - Port D'Ager - Monastir Avellanes - Calaf Aerodrome

WEATHER

Cloud cover will be getting less throughout the day, at 14:00 we will have a 30-40% of cloud coverage and at 15:00 a 10%.

No risk of thunderstorms neither precipitation. The only worry will be the wind

W-NW winds of 18 km/h on surface (600 m), W-NW 21 km/h at 1200 m, and NW 32 km/h at top of lift.

The top of lift or ceiling will be around 2100 meters. The winds will decrease slightly through the day NW 23 km/h at top of lift, NW 19 km/h at launch altitude.

We hope that the valley heating during the morning will pull the valley winds to SW and make it launchable.

DAY 12

Today is our last competion day and this afternoon we will have the prize giving and  farewell party. We wil try to set a task with easy retrevails so we can end early. I would kindly ask all pilots to do there best and try to hand in there GPS as early as possible, so the scorers can publish results around 21:00, we will have 1 hour maximum open to claims and protests.

The programme for the prize giving is the following:

21:00 Reception Cocktail
21:30 Prize giving
22:30 Snack
23:30 Disco Party

All the mentioned above will be held at the Social Club of Ager (same place were the opening parade started)

Day 11

LATEST NEWS: TASK CANCELLED

TASK 8

Results Task 8 here.
Updated Overall Results here.
Updated Team Results here.
Traks Task 8 here.

Well. well, well, this competition is getting more exciting everyday. I just hope the wheather also plays the game allowing pilots to compete until the very last!

Against a not so good weather forecast, pilots flew and they flew well. 38 of them in goal; the first one in at 17:04 and the last one at 19:38. The first pilots were quite fast with an average speed of 41-42 km/h and the last ones were very patient and persistent!!!!

And some other pilots just couldn't make it this time...

Luis Rizo Salom (FRA) was having a good run until he noticed his instrument had automatically jumped on to the next TP and that he had probably missed it so he turned around, went back to find the TP, made it and resumed his flight towards goal. Then he got low and got weak thermals, but did not give up and eventually came in much later than expected. While discussing with his TL (team leader) they weren't sure whether it was an instrument issue or if he had made the TP, which was pretty much on route to the next one, without noticing.... We shall take a look at his track to really know what happened. He wasn't really happy about it, but he DID finish the course!

On the overall, G.Heinrichs (AUT) who has been leading the comp all along, is being slowly approached by T.Weissenberger who also happens to be Austrian. Once again they have achieved to be in the fight for the top places at such important events...that is why they were once called "The Mighty Asutrians". On task 7 Weissenberger gained 140 points on Heinrichs and yesterday another 160 (that is 300 points in 2 days, wow!) and the gap is now down to only 128 points: anything could happen! If they get to fly these next days Gerlof could maintain his lead or lose it, or both could make mistakes and drop down. Pilots on positions 3, 4 and 5 are 50 points apart...so the game is open and we do not know how it will end!

On the team results GBR has moved back to 4th place and SUI taken the 3rd place (91 points difference). The Austrian advantage over the Italians of 230 points until task 7, has been cut back to 44 points after the great performance of the "Azurri" yesterday coming in 1st, 3rd and 4th for the day!

As you can see, the comp is quite exciting, isn't it? Let's hope they get their chance to fight until the end and enjoy the flying.

Keep the fingers crossed!!!

Carol Tobler (SUI) always happy
Ager - Port D'Ager - Estacio D'Ager - Castell D'Mur - Talarn - Isona - Abella - A01050 - Villamitjana

20:00 - Pilots at Goal

Jon Durand (AUS), Primoz (SLO), Thomas Weissenberger (AUT), Zin (FRA), Martin Harri (SUI), Gerolf Heinrichs (AUT), Mario Alonzi (FRA), Cataldi (ITA), Ciech (ITA), Balazs (HUN), Attila Bertok (HUN), Kavanagh (GBR), Voiblet (SUI), Gordon (GBR), Guiducci (ITA), Moroder (ITA), Blay Snr (ESP), Peternel (SLO), Corinna (GER), Wolfgang (AUT), Struganov (RUS), Dave Matthews (GBR), Barthelmes (GER), Dan Vyhnalik (CZE), Filippo Oppici (ITA), Grant (GBR), Kathleen (GBR), Cejka (CZE), Tom (BEL), Jochen (BEL), Julia Kucherenko (RUS), Marc Utrillo (ESP), Rizo (FRA), Pedro Garcia (ESP), Trimmel (AUT), Balog (HUN), Leuskov (RUS), Tucek (CZE)...

Tricky forecast and conditions today. The TC and MD went for a 78 kms task flying most of the time on the Ager Valley to make it better for people and not force pilots having to glide low for turnpoints. A "short" task due to the risk of thunderstorms later in the evening.

July 21st - Day 10 / Task 8

After the cancelled day yesterday, people did all sorts of activities: some went swimming in the beautiful lakes in the area, others went for bike rides, hikes or kayaking tours.
Of course, some others just slept a lot!!!
The sun was shining in the afternoon, maybe it would've been possible to fly a short task because the predicted thunderstorms did not show up; pilots could've use a rest day anyway. Hopefully they are all ready for some nice flying today.

Conditions will be weaker than the previous days with top of lift at 1900mts around 2pm. Wind on surface 17km/h from the S, 19km/ S-SE on take off and around 2000mts 15km/h S again. Cloud cover: 10% and thermals approx. 3.0-3.6 m/s.
Towards 5pm, cloudbase will have raised up to 2300mts and the winds on surface (20km/h S) and on take off level (22km/h S-SE) will have increased a little, but up at cloudbase it will still be the same. Cloud cover will be 20% and thermals will be weaker around 3.0-3.4 m/s and in certain areas even drop to 2.0 m/s.

The task will probably be around this valley with a later crossing to the Vilamitjana goal area.
In the afternoon update you will get more precise details about it!

Morning pictures: Some Staff members having breakfast at the "Camping Vall d'Ager" (where we also have the HQ) getting energy to do their job today. The town of Ager seen from the window of the scoring room and the take off ridge.

July 20th - Day 9 : CANCELLED DAY

Task 7 also significantly changed the team results, until then the Austrians were coming in 4th and the Italians were tied on first place with the Swiss. As G. Heinrichs (AUT) said: "The Empire Strikes back!" as they regained the top position.
Look at the updated team results:

DAY 20/07/10 CANCELLED DAY

THERE IS HIGH RISK OF THUNDERSORMS, IN THE PYRENEES THAT WILL AFFECT THE AREA OF TREMP AND AGER. AT 8am there were already BIG towers of clouds over and behind launch. It is 9.45am right now and there is THUNDER and some rain...

TL BRIEFING AT 10:00

OVERALL RESULTS
Gerolf Heinrichs 6425 points
Thomas Weissenberger 6134 points
Attila Bertok 6079 points

TEAMS
AUT 17322 points
ITA 17099 points
GBR 17069 points

TASK 7
Thomas Weissenberger 964 points
Laurent Thevenot 950 points
Dan Vyhnalik 912 points

Last night, while driving back to the hotel there was a beautiful view of some "Mammatus" clouds, a type of formation I haven't seen very often. This is what it looked like:

Task 7

This report is coming a little bit late, or I could also say "early this morning", but my co-wrokers already posted some interesting information about the task! I am sitting at headquarters typing as I hear the THUNDER on the back and feel the greyish light out there...

Getting back to Task 7, it ended up being very selective and a "scrambler" as I like to call them.
89 pilots took off and only 19 made it all the way, that is a bit over 20%. The pilots ended up evenly spread throughout the course which increased the day's quality.
Sitting at goal last evening was quite exciting because at first (between 5.30 and 6pm), we couldn't see anyone coming plus with the storms developing to the left of course and the headwind, at some point we had our doubts of anyone making it. Then some minutes after 6 we saw it: the little "glider-looking" dot in the sky, behind the birds on the hill. It wasn't clear if it really was a glider or not. As the seconds went by and the until-then-unidentified-object got bigger showing itself to us as a GLIDER!!! We were expecting to see more of those as usual, but for a strange reason we couldn't see any. Well, it was easy: there weren't any others!!! Tom Weissenberger came in almost 25 minutes before the second pilot! He spotted a dust devil in the flats approx. 30kms before goal and climbed on an integrated 7m/s to cloudbase (2500mts) and from there he glided practically on a straight line for 28kms (except for a couple of turns) leaving EVERYONE miles behind.
Second in was Laurent Thevenot-FRA (who actually was 6mins faster than Thomas) and, around 5mins later, a group of 6 pilots rushed in. Then there was another 5mins break and the next group of 5 pilots came in. The last pilot came in at 7.42pm short before the closing of the task (8pm). And that was it for the day...

Unfortunately Carl Wallbank (GBR), who was climbing up in the results, and Davide Guiducci (ITA) landed 2.5 and 3kms short of goal!!! Ouch!!! But, that is the game and most of the great pilots have gone through that "traumatic" experience! Carl said he was racing very hard and flying great, that he should've slowed down to make sure he'd make it, but after flying so fast and so good for most of the course, I guess, it is very difficult to "step off the gas pedal"...
Marc Utrillo (ESP) was acclaimed with cheers by the goal staff (also Spanish)!!

Results Task 7 here.
Updated Overall Results here.
Updated Team Results here.
Tracks Task 7 here.

Thomas Weissenberger (AUT) first pilot at goal and he wins TASK7 with a time of 3:14:00

PILOTS AT GOAL
Heinrichs (AUT), Uhjelyi (HUN), Bertok (HUN), Ploner (ITA), Alonzi (FRA), Voiblet (SUI), Vyhnalik (CZE), Crossingham (GBR), Gricar (SLO), Weissenberger (AUT), Utrillo (ESP), Nedoma (CZE), Mayer (AUT), Rizo (FRA), Barthelmes (GER), Kavanagh (GBR), Thevenot (FRA), Nichele (SUI), Leuskov (RUS).

Ager - Cervin - Balaguer

As you saw in the weather bulletin this morning, the forecast was pretty good with probable thunderstorms to the SE of here; therefore, the Task Committee and Meet Director decided to go NW all the way up to Cervin (pretty close to Castejon de Sos) and back, past Ager, to Balaguer.
It is a 127kms race! The SG radius was set at 14kms towards TP1 as another attempt to avoid overcrowding and putting pressure off them about flying to the valley behind take off. This means they will have to fly this first part with no real rush, stopping to thermal on the way as many times as needed.
The day is looking GOOD with nice clouds around; we are expecting the first pilots in goal at about 5.30pm!

Take a look at the route:

Today's early pictures show different aspects (not in chronological order) of what usually happens on launch.

We have the Austrian Wind Dummy on ramp, assisted by the take off staff, about to launch before the competitors.

All the beautiful smoked sails waiting to be launched by their pilots, nice and organized!

The Italian Team gets together to discuss the task and probably to plan some strategy since at the moment they are tied in 1st place with the Swiss!!!

After everyone has launched, we see a group of Staff Members (wearing nice orange t-shirts), CIVL officials, retrieve drivers (the real VIP's), etc. watching gliders go round and round!

July 19th - Day 8 / Task7

Todays General Weather Information:

Pilots are driving up to launch and will have their briefing, as usual, around 1pm for task information. It is looking rather good with some unstable air. There will be storms to the S-SE of Ager, but probably they will be flying to the N-NE with some head winds. It will be interesting...

Task 6

Results Task 6 here.
Updated Overall Results here.
Updated Team Results here.
Tracks Task 6 here.

46 pilots on goal!
Àger - Sopeira - La Pobla de Segur - Isona - Antena Bóixols - Talarn - Vilamitjana

Task Distance: 108,37Km

It was a difficult task to call with the forecast of a blue day and an inversion. There was also the problem of setting a StartGate that would avoid overcrowding, especially considering it was a Sunday and there were a lot of free flyers.

Pilots started taking off, but conditions were weak and they weren't getting high enough. On top of it, launching conditions were tricky with crossed wind often slowing the process down. The first SG went by and nobody left...by then most competitors were already in the air, except a small group including most of the Spanish Team (5 out of 6). It didn't seem attractive to them to spend a couple of hours circling not getting anywhere; they preferred to stay on launch watching!

Blay Olmos Jr. (Spanish Team) said before taking off that he thought the flight needed to be flown fast because it was an easy route, nevertheless the conditions didn't seem as good as the previous day before. They had to be careful and stay high. He would've preferred a longer task, but yet again, conditions were not excellent. His guesstimate was of 50 or 60 pilots in goal.

He was pretty close, but the best is that he made it himself!!!

Filippo Oppici (Ita) once in goal said it had been a difficult day with some very stable parts and others where you were able to fly fast.

Gerolf Heinrichs (AUT) is still leading the overall results (5603pts), Attila Bertok (HUN) former World Champion is 2nd (5294pts) and Mario Alonzi (FRA) 3rd (5240pts). There are still 4 days to go...

Some images on take off today:

July 18th - Day 7 / Task 6

If cloud coverage (cirrus) was an issue yesterday, except for the 10-20% cloud cover North of Tremp, for today we shall have a BLUE DAY.
At 14:00 thermal strength in the different flying areas will oscillate between 3.7 and 4.0m/s and winds from 15km/h SW on the surface up to 18km/h NW at 2000mts. Top of the lift will be around 2100mts.
Towards 17:00 top of the lift will have risen up to 2500mts. Wind will be similar on the surface and only a couple of kms weaker at top of the lift. Thermal strength will decrease to 3.0-3.5m/s.
Today's QNH 953mb and 38ºC.

Top of the lift (green) and Temperatures (red) at 14:00

The schedule will be as usual: pilot briefing on Take Off at approx. 13:00.

Goal Foradada - Task 5

Results Task 5 here.
Updated Overall Results here.
Updated Team Results here.
Tracks Task 5 here.

23 pilots in goal, a difficult one indeed! Alessandro Ploner (ITA), current World Champion and toady's day winner, as he crosses the goal line:

He is going for his landing approach:

As we approached the goal's coordinates, we came upon several beautiful and huge landing fields; they all looked great. It was defined as a "dream field" and compared to those enormous fields in Forbes (Oz). The goal staff was already installed, looking very pofessional with the umbrella, the line and one of the marshalls looking through the binoculars:

Martin Harri (CHE) said that "It was a difficult task with a lot of wind and not a lot of height: max. cloud base was around 2300 or 2400mts, but the average was 1800mts. The route was tricky up to Vilanova, where I saw a lot of people getting low; then we had to fly into the flatlands where flying in a gaggle it was OK, but alone you had almost no chance. The last part of the task, you had strong head wind but there was "good air" (lift)."

This task may really affect the overall results since some of the leading pilots did not make it and other top ones were slow; a real "scrambler".

Task 5

Áger-Pociello-Vilanova-Port d'Áger-Monastir Avellanes-Foradada

With a weaker forecast than yesterday the Task Committee goes for a shorter task of 138kms, which will be scored less due to TurnPoints (TP) and StartGate (SG) cylinders.
They will first fly to the WNW of launch, then back to the Ager area and will stay S of Ager to avoid the highly cloud covered area in the N (90%).
The first SG was at 15.15 and apparently most pilots were going for that one.

Today's turn to give his opinion about the task, before flying it, was Marc Utrillo's, recently crowned Spanish Champion:
The first leg up to Pociello is quite difficult and maybe there will be several pilots landing in the area. Then it will be a bit easier coming back here and getting high again before going to Vilanova, which has a 2kms radius to avoid people from getting trapped in the hole or landing there. From Vilanova to the Monastery will be interesting because the level of difficulty of this leg will be directly proportional to the speed of wind. Right now there is not too much wind [forecast is 15km/h], but we will only know once we get there! Then the glide to goal is easy! I think maybe 40 pilots will make goal, but then again, I may be wrong!

I guess we will have to wait and see...

Juaki (Meet Director) describes Task 5

Just some minutes before the window opened