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Yesterday, we went to Monte Subasio, which is about an hour’s drive from Sigillo, because the forecast was that the wind would not be as strong there as on Monte Cucco.

Launch conditions were great, so within not even an hour, all 148 pilots were in the air. Apparently, Jeff O’Brian from the US team had problems with one of his instruments, so he top landed on Monte Subasio, fixed the problem, and launched again. I saw him later in goal. Amazing that he did not lose his nerve. But I guess that is what distinguishes a good pilot.

The start gates were at 2:30 p.m., 2:50 p.m., and 3:10 p.m. The task was a 117.8 km race to goal, first to the south and southwest, back to Monte Subasio, then to Monte Falco and Trevi. Goal was at the bottom of Monte Subasio. As cloudbase was not high, it had been decided that the pilots would stay within the valley. And that apparently was a good decision. Cloudbase was not far above the launch at Monte Subasio, and also the wind was fairly strong. Later in the day, clouds got more and more so that the terrain became quite shady. Altogether, the day must have been difficult. In the end, we had 22 pilots in goal.

The day winner is Primoz Gricar (SLO), who comes to goal five minutes before Alex Ploner (ITA), who is closely followed by Gerd Dönhuber (GER). The results can be found at www.cucco2011.org.

Primoz usually makes a little show out of his landings. Yesterday, Hadewych and I were sitting between two trees on the landing field that are just about a wingspan apart. I asked Hadewych whether it was such a smart thing to sit between these trees. She said that nobody would fly between them anyway. She did not take Primoz into account. He did his final glide right between these trees. What a fantastic pilots. Well, he is number one in the world at the moment. That alone proves that he flies really well.

We got back to Sigillo at 7:30, had dinner here at the Villa, and then went to headquarters, where the scorers were doing the GPS downloads. At 10, they had not yet finished the downloads because apparently some pilots were still being retrieved or on their way back to Sigillo. Competition days can be long. But the day was a success, everyone had landed safely, and it is always great to see all the smiling faces.

If we have a task today, you can follow it via live tracking (with a 15 minutes delay for strategic reasons).

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