Luc Armant, Seiko Fukuoka Naville and Team Ozone new World Cup World Champions
Today brings to an end this amazing, first ever, Alpine Paragliding World Cup Super Final.
103 pilots came to Disentis with the same dream: just to fly together and be reunited with much missed friends.
Disentis 2021 brought together an all-star cast of young and old, famous and not so famous. We had a Costa Rican pilot in the Super Final for the first time and X-Alps Super star Chrigel Maurer made a comeback.
The competition far exceeded all expectations. It was Alpine splendour at its best: Seven tasks with stunning views of rocky peaks and glaciers.
For Marc Wensauer it was rock faces, waterfalls, sharp edged rocky ridges, chamois roaming the high pastures and a whole combination of conditions. Wind directions varied, with winds from the north and south high up, then a strong valley breeze from the east, all in one task, giving challenging racing conditions.
For Colombian pilot, Alejandro Salazar, it was such impressive terrain and possible to get high in an incredibly short space of time.
For Seb Ospina the aerial racetrack here connects so many steep valleys, lakes, intimidating terrain, but at the same time stunningly beautiful panoramas. Even two days of good flying weather would have made it a most memorable competition because of the landscape, but to have had seven is a blessing. Everyone will remember their flights here forever - truly unforgettable flying.
For Felix Rodriguez this Super Final has been unexpectedly good. Nobody in their wildest dreams expected seven tasks out of a maximum of ten. The pilot level has been fantastic and great conditions gave very technical flying. But above all, the best thing about Disentis 2021 was all the people helping, with their wonderful, encouraging smiles. I will always remember these nice people.
Well done to Martin Scheel and Marc Demond, president of the organizing club, and to their team of helpers, in particular Dani and Michaela for their efficient retrieve, and Emilia for taking care of the trackers every day.
A big thank you to the pilot task committee for daring to set tasks, which they seemed to literally pull out of the mist on some of the days: Michael Sigel, Remo Maissen and Ferdinand Vogel.
More than 500km of task distance were set. Aaron Durogati, Michael Maurer, Stefan Wyss, Christian Maurer and Stephan Morgenthaler all won tasks.
This competition has been a dream come true for everyone, especially Luc Armant, winner of the World cup in Coeur de Savoie, France in 2017, and San Potito, Italy in 2010. Winning three tasks and flying away with the title of Super Final Champion here in Disentis, makes him truly King of the Mountains.
The top 10 overall:
1st Luc ARMANT
2nd Aaron DUROGATI
3rd Adrian HACHEN
4th Stephan MORGENTHALER
5th Baptiste LAMBERT
6th Christian MAURER
7th Honorin HAMARD
8th Joachim OBERHAUSER
9th Julien WIRTZ
10th Ferdinand VOGEL
Many congratulations also to Seiko Fukuoka Naville who was first lady in three out of the seven tasks and has already won the ladies’ title a staggering sixteen times. Disentis 2021 brings her Super Final titles to three, have already claimed the top spot in 2016 in Governador Valadares, Brazil, and in Valle de Bravo, Mexico in 2015.
Top 5 ladies:
1st Seiko FUKUOKA NAVILLE
2nd Meryl DELFERRIERE
3rd Nanda WALLISER
4th Yael MARGELISCH
5th Constance METTETAL
Well done to the top three paragliding manufacturer teams, who have shown that glider and harness design has anything but stagnated over the last 18 months.
We were very fortunate to have Andy Busslinger and Martin Scheel here in Disentis taking some truly amazing photos of the pilots and the stunning terrain that they have been flying over in this competition. The galleries can be viewed here: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1znrEWr7BDCHS3nR4oxDxBKdgCOT8SZQf