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Hanggliding legend
Organiser Benno Osowski (left) introduces hanggliding legend Mike Harker (right).Yesterday, we had the Opening Ceremony of the World Championships. All the nations proceeded up the road to Tegelberg and went into the marquee that they set up especially for the Worlds. There were some speeches, one of them by organiser Benno Osowski, one by the mayor of Schwangau, one by the local District Administrator, and one by the chairman of German DHV. There were two pastors praying for good Worlds. The children from the local elementary school sang two most lovely songs, one of them in Bavarian. And there were two dancing groups that danced for us, one of them with traditional Bavarian dances. The highlight in my opinion was that hanggliding legend Mike Harker was there, which was a complete surprise to me, and he will be here during the entire comp. For those of you who don’t know him: He flew off the Zugspitze in 1973, which generated a lot of interest in the sport. After that, he opened flight schools, and he contributed a lot to making hanggliding popular.
After the opening ceremony, there was a party (of course, with traditional Bavarian music 😉). I saw Achim, a local hangglider pilot I had met after I
Opening Ceremony 1
The Austrians had the biggest flag of all teams. had just started hanggliding. It was in 2006, shortly after Christmas, and I was on holiday for a couple of days with my mum not far from Tegelberg. The Hopfensee, a lake not far from Tegelberg, was frozen. We were just sitting in the car, when I saw a hangglider come in to land. And believe it or not, he landed on the frozen lake. I told my mum to stop and have a look. So I walked onto the lake where Achim had just landed. He had come from Tegelberg, and he had intended to land on the frozen lake, with a pair of ice skates attached to his keel. So after flying, he went ice skating on the frozen lake. How cool was that?!
This morning, the weather did not look good at all. Tegelberg was covered in clouds, and there was a lot of rain. Still, we decided to go up the hill and see if it would be possible to set a task. Getting everyone up the hill was a challenge. Only about one third of the pilots had taken their gliders up the hill yesterday, so we had to take two thirds of 62
Opening Ceremony 2
Children singing songs for us, one of them in Bavarian. gliders up. There is only a cable car. And one cable car cabin can’t take more than six gliders. So it was really a logistical challenge to get all the gliders up the hill. We got everyone up in time, but then, suddenly, there was not a rush any more. Conditions did not look good. So we made the women rig their gliders first as there are only 21 of them. We thought there might be a chance to get them off the hill in a short window of good conditions. We waited until almost 12:30, then Heather, the meet director, decided to cancel the day because the actual conditions did not look good, and neither did the forecast. So everybody packed up. And she had made the right decision. When we caught the cable car back down the hill, we were completely covered in clouds, and it was pouring with rain. Now, I’m sitting in headquarters again. Will load some nice pics up for you!
By the way, Rebi uploaded many nice pictures and videos on the
DHV Home Page.
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