Alphen aan den Rijn    Friday July 30 2010    ritzdeluy@hotmail.com

Szeged Thursday; Finally ; the weather-gods are kind enough to help with some nicer weather. Still not super but flyable for all classes. The open and 18 m. use adjacent start-lines. Interesting to see how this works out for 100 gliders. Tasks are between 333 and 380 with B tasks with the same TP’s but in an AAT of 2.30 hours. A few delays before the first launch , but then the 31st WGC really started, though the open class friends had a rainy extra practise day , counting as their first competition day, with some pilots happy, as they REALLY did well and some unhappy as it just did n’t work for them. Atleast not TOO many points were lost.

Then it looks like a reasonable day  till the evening when Lars from Australia[15 m. class]  hit with his wing a truck passing by on the road at the approach end of the runway and hurting the driver. Straight away I have to think of HusBos where I was the TC of the WGC juniors , where a glider hit a famous photographer ,who died at the spot, with 5 of my young crew members around him. Hopefully the driver is OK, the pilot seems to be OK , the glider is totally damaged, as it fell in the fence around the airfield!

Scores are less important when things like this happen, but on the other hand life goes on. Good to see then that Pierre and Arnaud from Belgium won the day in open class and my Dutch friends Ronald in the JS 1 and Rien,  did well with a 2d and 3d place in 18 m. class. Lot’s of outlandings in 15 m. class where only 4 pilots arrived home.

Friday; A TC meeting at 8 AM. Result; a finish ring has been introduced and as most countries were happy with that , it is going to happen, WHY not earlier, why not starting with it, as your approach is over a highway????!!! ????
Of course you expect pilots to fly safe and not to take risks and not to have a too marginal final glide, but it HAPPENS…..
As the family from the truck driver does not want to give any information on the condition , we don’t know more but some truck drivers passed the airfield in the morning blowing their horns.Hopefully he will recover !!!
Pilots got tasks as well for today B for 15 and 18 m. and the last TP was in the middle of a thunderstorm causing most 18 m. and 15 m. planes to land in a field. Some even landed at Becescaba where in the past the EGC was flown. 2 Pilots Stefano from Italy and young former WGC champion Leigh from the UK did well in 15 m. and came home!!!
In 18m. 9 pilots ”made it home”. In open class 7, with my Belgium friends Tijl/Bert sr and Pierre and Arnaud. Also Michael Sommer , who I hope will be the next Ingo Renner ,did well. He has 2 WGC titles alread ”only” 2 to go!!!

All in all, to be honest, I do not feel too happy about the WGC’s this year. Too much negative things happening and it takes my enthusiasm and excitement a bit away to happily write about my favourite sport. Tomorrow might be better. Let’s wait and see.Cheers for now Ritz