Alphen aan den Rijn Friday morning July 16 EXTRA EDITION ritzdeluy@hotmail.com
An extra edition as we now are in the middle of the final stage of the 31st WGC for standard,-club and world class!!!!Otherwise the blog is getting too long and maybe boring to read!
The promised heavy weather for Holland arrived in the afternoon on Wednesday with down -bursts and mini tornedos causing a lot of damage . Unfortunately a 62 year old lady died when her caravan was blown in the lake. Several caravan’s ended up in the lake as well and 4 more people had to be brought to intensive care. Whole roofs of farms disappeared with the wind and trucks were blown over. For the first time in Dutch history 5 electricity- poles of 40 meter high, broke like if they were matches!!! Damage bill up to maybe 75million Euro!!!!! Belgium was hit pretty bad as well and had the next day still no electricity in some places and …..after it left Holland this heavy weather ”visited” Germany.
The last days of a competition give some extra tension, certainly at a WGC ,but when you can expect that the weather will be nice and no real ”lotterie-weather” can change the scores from up to down, it is a bit easier.
Last Wednesday was such an easy day again with nice results for the UK , making their TC Pete happy on the day of his return out of hospital. Howard Jones, yes from the famous Jones family, where I knew father Ralf pretty well in the past, was 6th . The 3 ”kids” Howard , Steven and Philip grew up in a soaring family , where I saw them through the years grow up from kids to young men.
Have n’t seen them for a while now but they are in their late thirties , early forthies and still good looking .
All 3 fly in the WGC this year.Howard in Prievidza and Philip and Steven in Szeged.Very special!!!!!In the Gliding International of July is a nice story about the boy’s ,being “the personalities of the month” ![written by Walter Kahn.]
As said Wednesday was an easy day no great changes in the scores but only 79 points difference between Sebastian and Mario in standard class!!! The German ”boys” top the Club class with Austrian pilot Mario on a nice 3d place then the 2 UK boys G and Ian and then the reigning champion Matthias Sturm on 6!!
Thursday was hot ….hotter ….the hottest in Prievidza and on day 10 the officials warned to drink a lot and to wear hats!!! This weather is NOT normal for Slovakia , like this weather here is very unusual for us. Global warming!!??
In Russia already 1700 people died by drowning after swimming drunk or just be unlucky. It is a terrible heat wave there as well with temperatures in the low 40thies!
Back to soaring; Racing tasks today in all 3 classes; 248 for the PW’s, 310 for club and 347 km for Standard class. But ….the late starters had a ” nail-biting ” day as it started to rain around 16.30, while thunderstorms were in the area around as well. Coming home was more and more difficult.
Then it is interesting to look at the st. class. The German boys started at 14.11 as the last pilots together with Sebastian…Sebastian made it home in 3.13 while our German friends needed 10 minutes MORE…..84 points lost!!! Sebastian leads now overall with 163 points!
Reigning “Welt-meister “, Matthias Sturm won in club class, storming to place 4 overall in his Hornet and I was very pleased to see that Luca won in the world class making it a good day for Italy .He is more then 1000 points behind the French number 1, so he won’t be world champion , but for sure he has had a few good days.
Belgium friend Bert jr. is 5th overall, SUPER Bert!!!!By the way, talking about unique families. The Belgium family Schmelzer is one as well. Bert jr. flies in Prievidza, girlfriend Liesje is his crew and mum Hilde is the Belgian TC in Slovakia. In Szeged son Tijl is flying and dad sits in the back of the nimbus, on top of that they are one of the loveliest families in the world!!!!
By the way our Dutch pilots have had very good days but also some ”off-days” as happens in comps! I know they are all top-quality and still can make the top 10. Let’s wait and see! And what about the day winner Erazum Polutnik and runner up Tobias Geiger. I never heard of Erazum, [nice name] but know that Tobias is a kilometer eater and often to be seen on the OLC. Good they had a great day!!
The day ended with some electrical storms causing problems, as kiling the power for the scores-computers and other computers and laptops. A few BIG drops fell as well.
The biggest passenger plane in the world , the Airbus A 380, visited last Thursday Holland and hundreds of ‘spotters ‘were on side to make pictures. It departed the same day, as it visits different airfields in Europe to check the operational part of such a mega plane.
The merge between British Airways and Iberia has been ratified and American Airlines will be also a member of this new alliance with the name; Oneworld!
And then this, received it from an Australian friend;
—And a “funny” story about a stupid Australian. A 36 year old (old enough to know better) man had too many drinks at the pub in Broome and decided he would go and try to “ride” a crocodile. He climbed over several fences to reach a 5m adult male croc named Fatso (notoriously aggressive) who promptly took a chunk out of his leg. The man managed to climb back over the fence and stagger back to the pub, from which he was transferred to hospital, and then discharged today. Police are deciding whether to lay charges.—
No crocodiles here, but we know about ”drunk” people. See you in 2 days on Sunday, with the latest on the last 2 days of Prievidza!!!!!
Cheers Ritz