By : Jurij Vertacnik

A small town in the middle of Slovenia, Rimske Toplice (Roman Spa) and a local PG Club Metulj (Butterfly) hosted this year's Slovenian National Paragliding Accuracy Championship. The competition was Open and registered as the first PG accuracy event ever at FAI, as 2nd category.

Slovenia is placed on the sunny side of the Alps and offer very good conditions for free flying. Therefore paragliding is very popular (almost 2000 pilots…of 2 million inhibitions). Along XC flying and standard pg competitions, there is Slovenian Cup in PG accuracy running for six years now. That means 10 competitions per year all over Slovenia where from 70 to 140 pilots attend each competition. More than 300 pilots attend at least one competition per year.Along Slovenian Cup there are National Championship and Super Cup, where the best 30 pilots from Cup and Nationals attend.

PG accuracy represent a good offer for pilots and organizer in many aspects: it definitely helps to improve pilots landing skills, it is a good competition challenge for a wide range of pilots, they all land at predicted landing area for sure and it is interesting for people, media and organizer.

On the other hand pg accuracy still offer a good competitive challenge: you have to take the discipline and training seriously if you want to achieve a good result constantly. Rules were one of the issues which has been discussed a lot for a last year with CIVL and Brits (who use parachuting/paracsending canopies and rules).

In Slovenia and neighboring countries pg accuracy competitions are held with, let say, »normal paragliding« canopies these days: that means all categories of AFNOR or DHV or like. Rules which are used for accuracy naturally do not allow fall at landing. Fall is penalized as landing out of measuring field (10 m). The same rule is used in Italy, Croatia and Austria (and probably somewhere else). Together we started an Alpe Adria Cup this year to promote paragliding accuracy and to make competitions more challenging.

The 2000 Slovenian Open Paragliding Accuracy Championship was held on 6th and 7th May according to PG accuracy Rule book, 2000. (General overview available in English, too: jurij.vertacnik@energetika-lj.si) 75 pilots and 18 teams from Slovenia and Austria registered and starting numbers were defined by lot. FAI Sporting license was obligatory according to Slovenian rule book for National championships. That was also the reason of low attendance of foreign pilots. .
Take off place was on the hill called Kopitnik, round 700 m above the landing area, which was set near by the town.

The wind forecast was not the best for take off orientation, but competition started and run smoothly. Conditions at landing place were quite challenging at the moment and almost everyone »missed« at least ones. From 300 flights »only« 10 DC were achieved (on target 5 cm in diameter) On the first day 4 rounds were completed. That was also the minimum for competition to be valid.

Spectators could enjoy in nice and technical correct landings and saw some spectacular landings too. Three judges at landing place has a lot of work, but has also no problems with decisions. There was no grievance placed and pilots did separate in the air correctly.

The day was finished with the social evening and rock concert. Some took a swim in thermal water (32 deg. Celsius) On Sunday the 7th May organizer try to start the competition early in the morning, but »wrong« wind worked all night and it was to strong for safe flying.

After few hours waiting organizer and technical commission decided to finish competition with a minimum rounds completed.

The winners for year 2000 became:

Individuals:

1. Matjaz Sluga	100 cm	(95, 1, 0, 4 cm)
2. Dusan Gorenc	261 cm	(12, 178, 70, 1 cm)
3. David Sluga	328 cm	(6, 10, 312, 0 cm)

Teams:

1. DJP Metulj Rimske Toplice

(807 cm)

(pilots: J.Senica, E. Kosic, D. Durkovic, M. Omahna, S. Klenovsek)

2. Aeroklub KIMFLY

(1551 cm)

(pilots: S. Marincic, R. Preloznik, S. Klokocovnik, R. Predarski, J. Vertacnik)

3. DJP Zlatorog Lasko

(1807 cm)

(pilots: F. Unuk, D. Sluga, M. Sluga, B. Pirnaver, F. Simonic)

The whole competition was organized very well and attracted round 1000 people to see accuracy champs at work… It was interesting for media as well: national and local TV report at the main sport news and some newspapers.

2000 Slovenian PGA Open was the first competition which will be included in a brand new World Paragliding Accuracy Ranking Scheme.

Report by Jurij Vertacnik