36th WGC for Club, Standard and 15 m. in Montlucon
8 August 2021 – 20 August 2021

With good distances , shared at briefing today, Sunday morning August 15, the “bad-weather” period seems over for now.
Meaning less out landings which is good for everybody.
Matthew Scutter’s Gliding still informs you about what pilots deal with in his “way of writing” . He is there, so feels and “lives” this WGC.
He writes , flies well …number 1 at the moment overall…helps out wherever necessary and is adopted by team UK.

This morning I read the first part of his long blog;
“The last two days have had a lot of on-grid surprises. Yesterday as I was getting in my glider I heard a shout of “putain!” from the glider next to me – airbrakes somehow jammed, so I got to help with derigging a fully ballasted glider for them to diagnose it. Today’s challenge was the discovery that there were active parachute drop zones that weren’t in the airspace file just prior to launch, so there was some very quick scrambling of paper maps and pens to avoid a potential disaster.“
Tonight INTERNATIONAL EVENING and after 5/6 days most probably a rest day tomorrow.

Yesterdays winners in 15 m. class;

Yesterdays winner in club class, with 91.96 km./h….. FASTEST of all classes!!!!…was Darius Gudziunas from the Unkraine; here is Darius with his team.

The head quarters of the TC’s are for quite a few at the airfield. High antennas help to keep the contact.

Sunday August 15 ;
Task 8, flying day 6 for club and 5 for standard and 15 m.

“Today, the weather conditions keep on improving and more cumulus clouds are expected in the sky. Competitors will head to the north and northeast on racing tasks of 300km in club class, 350km in standard class and 377km in 15m class. we wish them all a great task !” from the official site.
And then the waiting starts again, though skies rather look nice.
B tasks have been handed out as the weather did not develop according to expectations. First launches postponed!
THEN,….the noise of starting engines and you know it’s about to happen again. 94 gliders will start for their race.
First launches at 13.30.
At 7 PM, only a few scored pilots, and more and more out-landings….what’s happening to the mostly good weather in France,……it does n’t look too good for the International Evening.

Club class; 303 km... changed in 222 km; and then the task still was too long. The Belgian team wrote already “The sky is drying up and for the club class, who were launched last today, the start is looking difficult. The other two classes seem to have had an easier start with better defined clouds. Also the wind is picking up. Let’s hope for the best.“
At 8 PM, no finishers and already 16 out-landings. Some really did well with 186 km!!!!
At 9 PM, still no finishers so the conclusion will be ;ALL visited a French farmer!! No or a late International Evening.
A lot are not yet scored but it looks ,…all preliminary of course… that Killian [Walbrou] won the day with 191 km. Ferenc [Tamas] from Hungary flew 187 km, Thomas [Suchanek] from the Czech Rep .186 03 and Dutch pilot Thies 186.14 km.

standard class; 351 km.... changed in 269 km ; Dennis from Belgium won the day good on him. 84.79 km./h! Unfortunately his best mate and cousin, Jeroen was just out; 266 km. not far from the finish ring. It’s a tough competition!!!
” In standard class, Jeroen en Dennis flew very well again, with Jeroen leading most of the team flight, and Dennis took the lead at the end. Jeroen had to land out just a few km before the finish ring, we feel so sorry for him! Dennis just got some slight better thermals at the end, with a 2nd Belgian day victory as a result! Great team work again, but so unfortunate for Jeroen.”
Belgian Gliding Team
Only 9 pilots finished !!!
Dennis moved from 9 to 6 to 3 now overall.
Filip Bojanowski still leads. The Danish pilot is some kind of quiet achiever and very consistent.

15 m; 377 km….changed in B task 277 km; The scores from 15 m came it first. It was Ricky [Brigliadori] in LEO the JS 3 ,who clearly won the day with a relative late start at 14.50.
96 km./h….. 10 k faster than Laurent. Some others started at 14.19 as did Laurent [Aboulin] who was runner up!
Only 10 from 28 finished. Some landed close by as Matthew after 275 km.
Must be in the finish ring!
Jeroen [Verkuijl] who was runner up yesterday in the overall scores dropped from 2 to 11 and that really hurts!!!! He was out after 222 km. Also the daily winner from yesterday Roman was out after 233 km. dropping from 4 to 10.

AND,….I was hoping for less out-landings!!!!It’s a weird competition!!!
BUT,…you should NEVER give up!!!!

Tomorrow is indeed a very well deserved rest day.
So looking at the overall scores after a pretty difficult first week;
Club:
1. Uwe Wahlig from Germany in LS 3 with 3.151 points.
2. Darius Gudziunas from Lithuania in ASW 20 with 3.079 points.
3. Stefan Langer from Germany in LS 3 with 3.046 points.
4. Thies Bruins from The Netherlands in ASW 20 with 2.996 points.

Standard class;
1.Filip Bojanowski from Denmark in Discus 2A with 3.115 points.
2. Simon Schröder from Germany in LS 8 with 3.091 points.
3. Dennis Huybreckx from Belgium in LS 8 with 2.986 points.
4. Jan Omsels from Germany in Discus 2a with 2.977 points.

15 m. class;
1. Riccardo Brigliadori from Italy in JS 3 with 3.181 points.
2. Matthew Scutter from Australia in Diana 2 with 3.069 points.
3. Hadriaan van Nes from The Netherlands in JS 3 with 3.041 points.
4. Sebastian Kawa from Polands in DIANA 2 with 3.039 points.
5. Lukasz Grabowski from Poland in DIANA 2 with 3.018 points.
6. Karel Novak from Czech Rep. in JS 3 with 3.014 points.
All scores are pretty close so EVERYTHING is possible in the 2d week.
All scores are still preliminary!!!!

Still perfect soaring weather in Rieti by the way.
Yesterday 4 good flights from just over 1000 km. by Vittorio Pinni and Roberto Sala in the Duo Discus XLT.
And a just over 1000 k in a Ventus 2ct18m.
992 [ARCUS M] and 988 k.[Ventus 2ct/18m] and 915 [ ASW 24] , were other good flights.

CU on Wednesday again , with a day off in Montlucon tomorrow and visitors on Tuesday for me.
Cheers Ritz