Final Report

Sorry about the delay the gremlins that have plagued my attempts to keep you all up to date continued in Rome, where having written the final report I fired it off or so I thought, until a message from Ian at cngroup told me it had got lost in eworld.

So here we go as I had said in my last report the final day looked doubtful but we woke to blue skies and light wind and headed up the hill, to be presented with a 57km task along the mountains to Retie then across the valley and back to the Goal field, unfortunately the poor organisation that has been the main feature of this event continued and instead of an early start to get ahead of the forecast rain we messed about until the start gate opened at 1-30 pm, after the first two Tps I was in my best position of the event just behind Russell who was once again leading the whole field with Adrian, Jamie and me right on his tail ,with it looking like a podium place for the Brits if we could hold on to our excellent start we headed towards darker skies, unfortunately at 2-30pm the rain arrived and the task was cancelled.
The gods where not kind again and cost Russ the overall championship with a number of unfair twists and turns of fate.
Anyway it was Charles Cazzau from France who took the title even though Russ had beaten him in three of the four scouring tasks, with the Italian pilot Luca Donnini in third.
The prize giving was one of the few things that ran on time and after two weeks with eight flyable days but only four tasks the Super final was over. Russ took his trophy and check for 400euros (which just covered his entry fee) and a new chapter in paragliding had started, it is the use of Simi ridged spars in the wings the Ozone Gliders of Charles and Russ where clearly Superior to anything else but there will be long hard discussions on what a paraglider is and I will look on with interest.
I would like to thank Claire my lovely wife for her support over the last few years as I have indulged myself in the PWCA and followed this crazy event all over the world, and also a big thanks to Niviuk UK and Andy Talbot for there support and help over the last two years.
Next year it’s the European championships in Austria and the Fai World championships in central Spain in 2011.at the moment I think I have had enough but as Claire will tell you all she has heard that before.