By : Claus Lykke Jepsen

Nine countries, England, France, Germany, Australia, USA, Hungary, Russia, Japan and Denmark had sent 29 competitors to the championship, which was held in Hajduszoboszlo in Hungary from the 10th-23 rd of August. The city is small, but very famous for its thermal baths.

Parade through the city

The airport and accommodations was situated only 1 km from the center of town. The whole area in a distance of at least 100 km around the airfield was flatter than flat. It is known as the pushta and out there you can see, that our earth is round, because things disappear in the horizon. Unfortunately I only saw that on arrival, because the rest of the time the weather got more and more hazy.

The opening ceremony started with a colorful parade through the city. The streets were closed and the teams walked with two orchestras, one in front and one behind, 12 trikes and 2 hang gliders. It looked as if all the tourists and locals were out in the street waving to the competitors.

When the parade arrived at the airport, there were some speeches and then parachutist brought down each country's flag. After some folklore we were invited to a reception, where half of the pilots found, that the food was excellent and the other half didn´t have an opinion, because there wasn´t more food.

The Champs

The competition was run with aerotowing. In the days up to the competition, only some of the women had minor problems to get themselves and their equipment adjusted to aerotowing. One was unfortunate and caught the front tube of the trolley with the basebar. She brought the trolley up to 10 m height.

When it was decided at CIVL, that the competition was going to be run in Hungary with the use of aerotowing, some delegates were worried, that the women would get injured, but the reality is, that the women did fine. The only injury we had was a male wind dummy, which dislocated his shoulder because of a poor tow !

The weather was hazy with high pressure and a temperature at around 35 degrees C. As the days went by, the thermal conditions worsened.

The first heat was a 67,8 km dog-leg, which was won by Niki Hamilton (GB) in 2 h 22 min, which was 23 min faster than Natalia Khamlova and Neva Bull, who came in Second and Third. Corinna Schwiegershausen (D) and Eva Menyhart (HUN) came in as number 4 and 5.

Corinna Schwiegershausen (Denmark)

Heat 2 was a 53 km triangle. 8 pilots didn´t reach the first turnpoint. 14 pilots went down between the first and the second turnpoint. 7 pilots made the second turnpoint, but nobody reached goal. The day was won by Neva Bull (AUS) who flew 41,3 km followed by Kari Castle (USA) 40,9 km and Niki Hamilton (GB) 39,9 km.

Heat 3 was the same 53 km triangle, but the other way around. Those who took of first had the best conditions, because the day died between 4 and 5, so only Corinna Schwiegershausen, Monique Werner, Melinda Farkas and Natalia Khamlova made goal in that order. Melinda's Third place showed us, that even an old Rumour with kingpost can mingle in the top, when it is flown in the right conditions by the right person.

Heat 4 was an open distance in week conditions. Kathleen Rigg ( GB ) won with a distance of 51,5 km, followed by Francoise Mocellin (FRA) with 50,2 and Sybille Fischer (D) with 42,5 km. 10 pilots didn´t fly the minimum scoring distance of 10 km.

Heat 5 was an 80 km goal flight. The weather was similar to heat 4 or even worse. As usual the inversion came and the weather became very hazy. It was only possible to see a few kilometers, so a GPS, which all the pilots flew with, was a must. Nobody reached goal, because the sky got more and more covered with dark clouds and in the area around goal it was raining. 13 pilots didn´t reach 10 km. Again Kathleen Rigg showed us here strength in week conditions with a flight of 54,9 km followed by Eva Menyhart with 53,4 and Natalia Khamlova with 48,6. 7 pilots reached between 19 and 26 km.

Heat 6, a 30 km dog-leg, was a organisation failure. The heat started too late in extremely weak conditions with an overdevelopment in sight. Some of the pilots were towed up in rain, which didn´t stop the pilots from trying. Some made it to base in 700 m but when they reached the clock, that should have been placed 2 km from take off, but the clock wasn´t there. Struggling to stay up waiting 45 minutes for the clock to start most of the pilots landed. Some came back and were wrongly allowed a restart. The winner of the day was again Kathleen Rigg (GB) with 15,4 km followed by Olga Lazar (HUN) with 14,5 km. The rest of the pilots didn´t get the 10 km. The GAP system showed its strength giving the winner 7 point, number. 2 got 6 points and the rest got 5 points. Because the scoring didn´t change anything, the pilots didn´t give in any protest, which could have turned the "task" into an even bigger farce.

The next day, Saturday, it was raining, so the organisers wisely managed to hold the prize giving ceremony together with the dinner party instead of Sunday. The party was held in the terminal baths and was a fine ceremony and a good party.

Corinna Schwiegershausen became the new world champion with 2617 point followed by Neva Bull (AUS) with 2581 point and Natalia Khamlova (RUS) with 2545 point.

The winning team was Germany with 7348 point (5 pilots) followed by Great Britain with 6568 point ( 5 pilots) and Russia with 5874 point ( 3 pilots).