Yes this foggy picture shows the early morning, but if the sun is strong enough it will be “burnt out”. I HOPE!!!
You can barely see the windsock.
I looked at the European weather as well this morning, with a low in the N of Europe and a high in the S, gaining more and more ground also over the Montlucon area. Hope,…like….
Good news,….. there is a grid order ,club, 15m and standard class.
Tasks have been set; Club 197 km….15 m 225 and standard 196 km.
Briefing at 10.30,….I will be ready.
weather;
The trigger temperature ; 21 dgr.C.
At 4 it will be 24 dgr. C. and the high clouds should be “gone”.
Wind N N E 10 km……..
Treats; incoming cirrus from the West
“end of day ” at around 17.30.

First expected launch; 13.30.
” Safe flights to everybody …enjoy your last day and take care“

As said I expected news about yesterday from Matthew;
” The final day of a contest is usually too hard to make points on as everyone is covering someone, so when I saw an opportunity to do something quite different today on the penultimate task I thought it was worth trying. There was a megastreet that nearly joined up between two AAT circles, but it was a long way off track in and out. The alternative involved flying the isolated cu and looked trickier although a lot more direct. I went for the megastreet and I’m pretty sure I was the only one to use it both ways, but it was a bit disappointing and tricky to find the cores by myself. I still had a respectable speed but I was coming into Montlucon alone which is always a high risk activity, with my class still averaging only a 35% task completion rate.Despite just being 10 minutes behind the gaggle I got a bad phase of the spreadout and was looking at a bleak sky to try and pickup glide along. I was only 300ft below glide but I instead opted to go deeper into the last circle, now 1000ft below glide, where there were still good cu to pickup a climb onto glide with. What I didn’t understand was I was flying into a different air mass – much lower cloud base, only 600m above ground, with very soft and narrow climbs. After an extended period of circling lower I finally gave it away and parked it. The sun did eventually come out again through the spread-out and the cu cycled to a bit more definition, so I think it was possible but just not at the time I tried.” Matthew Scutter’s Gliding
His attempt,…it all makes sense.

Quote ‘s from the last day’s ;
“No outlandings, no use of engine, we finally managed to have a day where all of our pilots managed to complete the task! “
AND;
“Time flies when you’re having fun, well, today at least! “
“But somehow it was possible for many pilots to make a lot of distance in a sky awfully close to a solid overcast.”
”  Sarah was some 15 minutes behind, and at 19:00 – long after the day was predicted to be dead – no view of the sky or her altitude & position offered even the smallest reason for optimism.  With her trailer on the road headed to the general area where she must now surely land, she somehow found the climb she needed and became the final finisher, just a few minutes behind the others.” On task 9 by John Good.

Note about yesterdays overall preliminary scores.
They changed over night in the 15 m. class. Not Ricky is runner up behind Sebastian but his Polish mate Lucasz…Ricky has 3 points less than Lucasz. [4.014…4.011]

AND ,…this is Montlucon as well. Interesting children for flying.

And that can lead to a JWGC….
The last JWGC’s have “produced” top pilots.
From the participants now in Montlucon, several were WORLD CHAMPION and even more important continued soaring.
In 2003 [ Nitra] Jeremy Hood flew already in standard class and became CHAMPION in an LS 8 , now he flies LS 8 as well. At this stage he is 4th!!!!
In 2007 in Rieti, I was there, Killian Walbrou became World champion in club class in a St Cirrus. Montlucon 2021 is not his year, 14th at this stage.
In 2015 in Narromine Matthew Scutter won in St class in a Discus 2A. Robin Smit was runner up that year. Matthew flies a Diana 2 now and is on spot 4. I was there as well.
Same year 2015 in Narromine it was Tom Arscott who was the world champion in club class in a St Cirrus. This year he flies an LS 7 WL and is on spot 6.
In 2019 in Szeged it was Simon Schroeder who won in an LS 8. Now, with today to go, he is on spot 1 also in LS 8.
Also in 2019 it was Jake Brattle who won in club class in an ASW 20. Now he flies LS 7WL and is on spot 8, but still current JWGC champion.
GREAT JUNIOR CHAMPIONS and still fabulous good pilots!!!!

What happens on the last day, when everybody ,certainly the top 5 in each class ,looks at each other. Tactics or just going for “all or nothing”.
Scores are so close that everything still can happen as long as the weather is good for fair flights and the day long enough.
It was NOT.
They postponed several times and at 2.15 the B task was handed out, so more waiting ,another late start with an early “glooming- end -of – thermals ” at 5.30.
Around 2PM the Belgian team wrote; “We woke up under a total overcast, but luckily, it started to break up around midday. By now, it looks very blue with a few small cumulus clouds here and there. Forecast is mainly blue thermals today, with a cirrus cloud layer coming into the area in the afternoon. Hopefully, all pilots can make it around today so we can enjoy the farewell party this evening together.“

August 20 :
task 11, flying day 9 out of 13 in club and 8 in standard and 15m.
“Today is about not losing, rather than winning.“

Club class; 197 km. …B task 135.39 km..…..first launches just before 14.30 . The ceiling was about 650 m. AGL over the field. I looked at the flight from Aude , accompanying the pilots in the air with her comments and what I heard was mostly c’est dommage [it’s a pity] and “malheureusement” unfortunately.
But club class, lucky enough to be the first to launch , went on track.
“Club class is now on the way to the first turn point, and it seems that conditions improve further north with blue thermals up to 900m in the task area.”
At 17.16 the first glider finished. Tomas [Suchanek] with 76 km./h .
As they mostly flew in gaggles quickly more pilots followed.
AND,….at that time ONLY 3 out!!
Well,…the 3 top pilots Uwe ,Thies and Stefan had such a good buffer that they made it and stay on spot 1, 2 and 3. Even with a 20thiest day-place for our Dutch hero Thies!!!
Uwe was only on a daily spot 21 , but he is such a CLEAR GREAT winner and Stefan, on spot 18 with a speed of 63 km./h like Thies.
Jake and Tom share spot 1 again,…how they do that???….and got 427 points .
Thies’ spot 20 gave 300 points, so not a lot to loose or to win.
Only 7 were out. The last pilots finished just before 7, so a nice long day.
Tomorrow the official results.

Standard class; 196 km….B task 141.18 km….the last to be launched and most pilots dropped their water already during the launch. They continued launching, but circumstances were not really better, around the field. You need height to go on track.
Some indeed did and found some better weather, working hard. All starts were after 4 so a small window, but the day luckily turned out longer than 5.30. Daily winner Luca Urbani from Italy with 62 km./h
Benjamin Neglais from France was runner up.
Then the German team [Jan on 3 and Simon on6] , the Dutch [Robbie on 4 and Sjaak on 7] and Belgian. [Dennis equal on 4 and Jeroen on 8]
13 from 30 were in! From them 4 are not yet scored!
So I’ll wait for the official overall results but it looks like also in this class the German team has 2 pilots in the top 3 with Simon on 1 and Jan on 2 with my Keiheuvel mate Dennis on 3.
13 from 30 finished today, Jeremy as last one at 19.18.

15 m; 225 km.….B task 158.57 km...Also this class struggled close to the field. The organizers waited 10 minutes after club class was up , to see what was happening. Not much ….but they continued launching.
On the tracking I could see a few pilots higher than 1000 m. amongst them glider R P Sebastian and KW with Laurent .
At 6 PM, there were 6 outlandings .
Matthew won the day with 4 points more than Sebastian and Lucasz was 4th behind USA pilot Tim.
BUT,…later Matthew was punished for a too low finish; 502 m. That cost him the first daily place ; spot 5.
So Sebastian on 1 , Tim on 2 and Jeroen on 3 for the day!
7 from 29 were in. No scoring yet for Ricky, so things might change.
Sebastian has never flown a competition in which he had to dump all water from his Diana. He was happy to be home and tired and very tired. The little clouds in the end helped a lot to make it home, he said.
In “one” word he called it the WGC for the light Dianas.

More tomorrow, quite an exciting day. It kept me busy ALL day and evening.
This WGC was more or less “an end-of-the-day-competition”. Late launches, late starts and a race against the clock to be back in time before “the- end- of- the -day -time” to finish! Or before the window closed!
It looks like the German team wins the TEAM CUP with 920.56 points ahead of The Netherlands with 904.78.
CONGRATULATIONS guy’s

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NO weather in Ostrow, hence no flying today! A nice picture though, a glider surrounded by flying-mates/birds.

The CCR in Rieti has interesting weather as well;
” Rainfall with possible thunderstorms south of Rieti: isolated showers, and possible thunderstorms also on north area -Cumulus base: From 2.200 to 3000 m -Wind: W NW in west side. E NE in the East side and weak variable in the middle. -Temp. Max from 29 up 32 ° C“

A 2.10 AAT was set for group 2. A difficult pretty marginal day with only ONE finisher team Alberto Sironi /Andrea Venturini in the ARCUS T; 260 km. in time 2.18.
Runner up Jon in his brand new AS 33es/18 m; 146 km. but no finish.
It might be that the day will be cancelled as only 5 flew over 100 km due to a storm around the first TP. Will let you know.

Enough writing for today!!! CU tomorrow with pictures from the prize giving and maybe from the party which will be busy Now [9PM. here in the Netherlands.

“Tonight it’s time for our pilots to relax and sink a few beers. Well done everyone for what turned out to be a challenging comp. The weather threw us some curve balls and I’m sure there are still a few stories to tell.” British Gliding Team

Cheers Ritz