Competition News

Today it was way windier at the takeoff than yesterday. A 72km Task was set with only two Turnpoints, before heading towards the ESS while around 10kph of SE-Wind was predicted. It was taking us 30km south-east, before we had to cross the flats to the nord and then going direction west on the 20km final glide to the ESS. It was again a very fast task with the fastest pilot going over the 40 kph average speed mark.
Again, the conditions were great and we had nice and smooth thermals with around 4m/s taking us to 3’000m above sea level, which was giving us very good working height, as most of the terrain is at 700m over sea level with mountains at around 1200m. So, it is like flying in the Jura mountains and the flats at 2’800m all day long.
At the air start the field was split up in to 3 groups. The main gaggle with around 90% of the pilots, which was more towards the ridge, but with a slightly longer way to TP1. Then one group of two pilots where Tim was one of them, which was waiting more north in order to take the most direct line to TP1 and finally a group in between of around 10 Pilots, where me and also Benjamin were in.
My group started to struggle just 5 minutes before the air start and had to start the race 150m lower than the other two groups. Tim was having a very good line at the beginning on the left, but unfortunately hit some big sink when flying towards the ridge before TP1 and had to play catch up after around 1/4 of the task. My group was pushing hard at the beginning but came in low, while the leading gaggle was taking a thermal further back, which was good for us as we were able to get some leading points while also climbing. The big gaggle then past us around 100m higher while we were in a nice 4m/s climb and just kept on going as the ridge was working very well. From here on I was always a tiny bit behind (20-30 seconds) and around 100m lower.
When crossing the flats to the second and already last Turnpoint I was finally able to close in and hit a beautiful thermal which brought us up to 3000m, ready to go towards the last Turnpoint. Together with Michi and Noé we took the last TP and started pushing towards the ESS. Here we were a tiny bit too conservative and did 4 more turns in a good climb, while two Niviuk Pilots kept on going. Unfortunately, we hit very strong climbs in front of us over a long time and at the end almost all the pilots arrived 600-800m over Goal and we were not able to catch up with the two Niviuk Pilots.
Still, it is a very good results with myself getting to the ESS with 40 seconds behind as 4th and Michi Sigel and Noé Court just 10 seconds behind me as 5th and 6th. Also Jean Morisetti had a very strong race and arrived only 2 minutes after the first Niviuk Pilot (the well-known Brazilian Richard Pethigal). Tim unfortunately was not able to catch up completely and arrives 15 minutes late, but again, with his very own approach of flying this task.
Overall, we now have 3 Swiss pilots in the Top 4:
1st Dominik Breitinger
2nd Michael Sigel
4th Noé Court
Let’s hope we can keep up the good pace.