With a rice wine coloured sky this morning, and a forecast of total cloud cover all day long, nobody thought it would be taskable. A 50 km task ziz zagging about the Mungyeong valley was set with 7 turn points. 

The pilots struggled to stay up at the beginning, then the sun came out and mission impossible suddenly became mission perfectly possible. 

However, Soheil Barikani decided to claim the day as his. At the start everyone went much further round the ridge towards the valley to climb but Soheil ridge soared along the back ridge. He scooped up all the lead out points which are more heavily weighted at the beginning of the race. So, by the time the rest of the race caught up with him, he had an unbeatable leading points advantage. 

It was good to see so many pilots in goal in the sunshine after such a gloomy start to the day. 

The two previous task winners Martin Jovanoski (task 1) and Tim Bollinger (task 3) were just behind Soheil crossing end of speed today, which made the wait for the results to be published nail biting.

The first 43 pilots made goal, and thus all flew the same distance, and gained the same distance points. Today’s winner is therefore the one with a combination of the best speed points and lead out points.  

 Top 3 speed point winners – the fastest pilots round the course
02:10:21: Soheil BARIKANI flying at an average speed of 20.4 km/h
02:11:34: Martin JOVANOSKI
02:11:36: Tim BOLLINGER

Top 3 leading point baggers – those who were in the lead the most
138.3: Soheil BARIKANI
94.7: Jeonghwan PARK
94.2: Chigwon WON

Top 3 in the task
1: Soheil BARIKANI
2: Tim BOLLINGER
3: Chigwon WON
3: Martin JOVANOSKI

Top 3 ladies in the task
1: Jinhee BAEK
2: Nao NARIYAMA
3: Jun YOMO

Top 3 teams in the task
1: Gin Gliders
2: Flymaster
3: Davinci Gliders

In the team competition the top two pilots in each team are scored and the second one gives the ranking. The highest placed second team pilot was Martin JOVANOSKI flying for team Gin.

Flymaster live tracking is at https://lt.flymaster.net/bs.php?grp=4793

Photo Gallery (click on the comment icon for a description of the photo and pilot's names):https://photos.app.goo.gl/LdCPQEmXue7wpoH87

Instagram: officialparaglidingworldcup

All the results are available here: https://live.pwca.org/scores