Prievidza continues,Szeged practises and Holland lost !

Alphen aan den Rijn     Wednesday July 14 2010    ritzdeluy@hotmail.com

First things first; we lost!!!!!!! Talking soccer. We did play not too bad , but certainly in the beginning too hard, not ”orange-like” and totally NOT Dutch. We had 2 great possibilities for Robben, we missed the ”luck”. We played against Spain and the referee, who made some curious decisions, but that’s no excuse. After 116 minutes it was over and out. Spain was better……Life goes on.On Monday ” our heroes ” arrived back and got a reception to be proud of; 2 F16 ‘s , one in orange, accompanied and welcomed the KLM 777 back in Holland with the boys and staff  , which gave lots of people goose bumps. On Tuesday there was a reception at the Queens Palace in The Hague , then a tour through the canals in Amsterdam  which was unbelievable , wish you could have seen that and a party on the Museum square where in total more then a million enthusiasts looked at the 3 matches and the runner-up-party. In the beginning the players still were in their ”loosing-mood-dip” , most of us as well, but this day yesterday was very healing for all, so now it is off to the European championships in 2 years time.

On Sunday morning another incident  in Prievidza was mentioned during briefing .Glider  NX wanted to avoid during his landing , a fence … “jumped”over it and made a hard landing, behind it,  injuring his spine!! Both pilot [ best wishes for a full recovery!] and glider are out of the comps. Too many gliders have been damaged already with out landings. Not good!
It must be  great then for the organizers to hear  that their organization in Prievidza  is super and when they have n’t heard I can tell you I heard it from several teams!

 I looked already at the Szeged-site  and found out that they lost all news [ as the last bulletin]  and data ,[ as the local procedures] on July 6 due to a server error , I felt very sorry for them. More then sorry…. that really is  a disaster.
On top of that the Hungarian pilot of the NX with the spine injury, is the CD for…… Szeged!!! So though he seems fine and must be in a home-town hospital by now, he can for sure not do his job. Pretty tough on the whole organization. But ….Brian [Spreckley] is there , another SUPER chief steward to assist and our Dutch Frouwke Kuijpers is there as well as steward. Yes if the name sounds familiar to you , she is the mother of European champion Tim Kuijpers, who won the first day in Prievidza.
They just finished flying in Szeged the Malev-Flatland Cup 2010, [July 4-16] as last practise , specially for foreigners, for the 31st WGC over there in Hungary and…. their Open Class Nationals.

On Monday Prievidza had an easy going day. Heard some pilots  thought the tasks were too short, [over 300 for club and standard and just under for world class] but at-least most pilots arrived back home after a great soaring day. In standard only 2 outlandings .
Tomas , who had a difficult start as he was hit during the mid air ,just missed out on 3 points to ”have” 1000. Considering he  only received 253 points after that scaring moment at day one, as he had to land , he is doing a great job. He is 14 overall now!!! A great pilot he is!!!! Sebastian is still on number 1 on Tuesday morning and talking about Sebastian, in the last Gliding International , which I received yesterday, there is a very nice interview with him.
In club class the first 10 places after 7 days of flying are shared  by 4 German, 1 USA , 1 Belgium , 1 Austrian and 2 UK pilots.
 In world class Luca Urbani, real nice fellow, started well but lost a few places. The first 5 places are shared here between the 3  French, one pilot from Czech Rep.  and one from Poland. Still a few days to go, so this might all change!
 The UK team had to miss their TC , as he still could write by himself ; Last nights pizza seems to be getting the better of me. They  brought him to hospital to avoid he would dehydrate and he has to stay there for a couple of days . I wish Pete all the best. His team was organized and experienced enough to take over where necessary!
 A pity he had to miss the International Evening, a great event at each important competition; a good moment to socialise.

Tuesday in Prievidza started still with hot conditions. Swimming pools on the camping bought  or brought by several teams , gave some relief. The postponed briefing to 10.30 as well. I get messages that they,”swim” out of their tents in the early morning, so some must get tired! On top of that they had that International evening the day before, so that might have been for some a heavy night!!! On the German site I read this Tuesday morning; Wegen Krankheit geschlossen!!! Closed due to illness.  Don’t know if it was the Int. party or ” a pizza”, but …it was the party! By the way the  crew from Martin is doing a great job to inform the crowd at home !!!
AAT’ s from 3 hours for each class were set, while some TC’s could see the first showers appear on the radar. First launch was at 12.05. A TRICKY DAY!!!! But it ended well for most. Enough outlandings again [10 in standard,7 in club and 3 in world class] but good results for the UK where G won the day in club class.The first 5 in standard class 3 from Germany 2 from France , all flew with a speed of 116 km/h. The French did also well in World class.

Now it is Wednesday morning  and a busy time is waiting for me. Guests from today  till August 5. Will try to keep you posted as well.
In Prievidza they expect another 4 days to fly till it is finished, which is good. They are on day 9 now for club and standard class with tasks just over 300 for st and club and 219 km. for world class. A picture from all team and pilots, in the heat was made this morning as well.
The tracking system is now really up and running and Art [ from Canada] is , as always doing a great job with his comments.I heard over 1000 people are following  now and that number is increasing. Good on you Art!
In Europe pilots still had fun , though several  countries suffered from real heavy weather. We had another day with such weather and more people hurt. Today we might have again at some places REAL thunderstorms , we have to keep an eye on the news with warnings for the areas. After that it should be over with the violence of this hot weather.
I was very pleased to see that our former Sportavia guests Uwe and Hans flew both a 1000 km flight from Cuenca Sotos in Spain in a DG 808 last Sunday. Would they have looked at the soccer final as well?????

Cheers Ritz

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