The forecast today said no usable thermals! The day is officially canceled which means that yesterday or day 8 was the last contest day of the 30th World Championships.
The scores are still preliminary but I am not aware of any pending protests, so in all likelihood there won't be any significant changes in the final scores.
Jerzy finished an excellent 11th in the 18m Class. For many days he maintained a position in the first 10 which gave us hopes he would finish there. Placing within the first 10 or near it, means placing among current and former world champions! Jerzy placed just ahead of Doug Jacobs, 15m world champion in 1985 who was also on the podium in '87 and 91. Please join me all in congratulating Jerzy!
The 15m Class was dominated early on by the Hungarian pilot György Gulyas. He took the lead early on and managed to increase it steadily. Although he finished in 9th place yesterday, he still widened his lead to 335 points! Typically the margins between first and second are less than 100 points.
Janusz Centka from Poland, a three times world champion, had an excellent flight yesterday and managed to zoom up from 5th to 2nd place overall. I guess, for him it was really pedal to the metal.
Mark Leeuwenburgh, the young pilot from Holland who Dave had shared a field with on his best day of the contest, is ecstatic that he will be on the podium in third place. These are his first world championships.
Dave had great days and terrible days. He had a costly landout early on, he finished second, only one point behind the winner on day 4, but in the end his hopes of placing well were sunk when he ran into airspace on day 7 and ended up with only 13 points on a 840 point day. An earlier error in setting a turnpoint zone correctly was not as serious but still took 50 points out of his score. It made the difference between placing in the low twenties and 37th.
The 15m Class Competitors
The 18m Class Competitors
As unwieldy they are on the ground, once in the air, Open Class ships are incredibly graceful and their finishes are a treat to watch.
Everyone here knows Art Grant, the contest volunteer from Manitoba. He is always in a good mood and always quick to lend a hand.
4 comments:
Congratulations to the whole team for a job well done! Particular kudos to Jerzy for his excellent and consistent flying and to Dave for his persistence after the land-out. Let's build on this success for the next championship.
Have a good trip home.
Ulli
Thank you Joerg for taking the time to keep us updated on the competition two or more times per day. I'm sure I'm not the only one who checked for updates several times per day to see how our team was doing.
Congratulations to Dave and Jerzy on a fantastic showing. To be competitive with the pilots at that level is an accomplishment in itself. I hope you both will consider representing Canada again in the future.
Carol Mulder
Thank you for your kind words, Carol. Actually, we have developed quite a following in Canada among the gliding folks and even people who are not affiliated with gliding.
Friends here in Europe are reading our blog as well. I was surprised to learn that the CD was also aware of it.
Congratulations to the Canadian Team. Just getting to the Worlds is a major accomplishment. I could not be prouder of the team and the tremendous effort both pilots put into the event.
The team showed that they could compete with the best and if it was not for a few technical errors would have shown even better in the standings.
Joerg should be thanked for his leadership as he did a wonderful job of keeping the team calm and focused while effectively representing Canada's interests with the competition officials.
Maria and Virginia should also be recognized for all their support - keeping everyone fed and watered, manning the radios, keeping track of start times and going on the inevitable retrieves. I think they worked as hard as the pilots.
I hope there is a Canadian Team at the 2010 Worlds in Hungary.
Well done.
Ian Sutcliffe
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