Summary written by Ruth Jessop
Despite a stormy forecast a 51km task up and down the flats was set.
Everyone struggled to stay up at the start as everywhere shaded over. After the second turn point the pilots still in the air dropped down to just four: Stan Radzikowski, Damir Habek, Marco Littame and Darko Stankovski.
For Stan Radzikowski, ‘Today, getting low and desperate proved to be the key to success. All the gaggles came and went while a few of us suffered low down, cycling through five or six thermals to get one to climb out in. Once up, we had plenty of height to cruise past turn points one and two and back to the thermal we had earlier.
After that it got a bit worse, the climbs weren’t as nice as earlier. As the climbs petered out we went on a glide for the third turn point. The line back just didn’t give anything and down I went. Still super happy with the result.’
Under gloomy skies as the clouds from the mountains to the south spread into the flats to the north, Marko and Darko pushed on.
The persistent south wind brought warm air into all levels making everywhere the same temperature and stopped thermals kicking off. This also put Damir on the ground before the last turn point.
With the wind behind them Marko and Darko pushed on and took the last turn point.
The race to goal was nail-biting with a goal field full of pilots cheering them on. Unfortunately, the wind against them made goal impossible even for the World’s best pilots. Marco landed 0.7 km short of End of Speed and Darko, today’s task winner, landed a frustrating 0.6 km from goal.
Darko Stankovski won the day 2 fields short of goal and 2km ahead of Marco Littame.
Well done to Joachim Oberhauser, Constance Mettetal and team Ozone, the very clear overall winners of this first ever World Cup in Clopotiva, Romania. Congratulations to Justin Puthod, best newcomer, who took second place, making a very promising debut into this elite domain.
A big thank you to Mrs Meteo, Anca Tabara, who has done a fantastic job of helping us to dodge the thunderstorms this week and have five excellent tasks. Well done to the task committee who thought of those tasks, each one different, challenging and full of options: Gareth Carter, Selever Bogdan – Tudor and Cristian Deacu.
Back in 2013 three amigos, Croco (Jurca Valeriu), Vali (Nagy Valentin) and Alin (Alin Raducan) from the club SkyTribe had the distant dream of holding a World Cup here. Thank you to them for making our dreams come true to come to Romania and to the one hundred and twenty pilots who have so enjoyed the thermals here in Clopotiva.
See you all again soon for the next World Cup and AGM in Krushevo, Macedonia from the 14th to 21st of July.
The top 3 in task 5
1: Darko STANKOVSKI
2: Marco LITTAME
3: Damir HABEK
Best newcomer: Stan RADZIKOWSKI (4th)
Top 3 ladies in task 5
1: Nao NARIYAMA
2: Marcella UCHOA
3: Gulsah HOS
Top 3 teams in task 5
1: Mac Para
2: Nearbirds
3: Ozone
Top 3 overall
1: Joachim OBERHAUSER
2: Justin PUTHOD (NEWCOMER)
3: Darko STANKOVSKI
Top 3 ladies overall
1: Constance METTETAL
2: Keiko HIRAKI
3: Marcella UCHOA
Top 3 teams overall
1: Ozone
2: Alas del Hombre
2: Jack & Jones
All the results are available here: https://live.pwca.org/scores
