Cross Country magazine, issue 130, July / August 2010
Hit by bad weather and a crisis over testing, the Europeans threatened to be a washout. But a brilliant last task showed paragliding and the pilots at their finest
Italy’s Luca Donini wasn’t the only winner at the European Paragliding Championships in Austria in June. Ozone won too: their Mantra R10.2 (the .2 stands for two lines) dominated the rankings, and was flown to every step on the main podium.
Only a few days before the comp, and with no more R10.2s in Europe, Ozone boss Mike Cavanagh lent Luca his own personal wing after the richly-decorated pilot got in touch to borrow a glider. “I think we’ll let him keep it,” Cavanagh said with a cat-who’s-got-the-cream grin after the won.
Meanwhile, there was one very sorry poor loser. Will anyone ever hold a competition in Austria again? After the Women’s World Hang Gliding Championships, held up the road in Tegelberg, were literally snowed under (they brushed 30 cm of snow off the launch in the vain hope of getting a task one day) and all the competition prizes donated by sponsor Adidas were handed out by raffle, there was some hope that the Euro PG Championships, held 23 May to 5 June, would see a bit of sun.
Not a bit of it. Rain and poor weather meant only one big task truly worthy of the calibre of pilots involved was called – and that on the very last day. Weatherbound, politics reared its head: it was possible to follow the hair-splitting in realtime online.
This is not what they had in mind when organisers proudly announced ‘live tracking’ a few months ago. It wasn’t meant to be like this...
Read more, including interviews with the champions, in Cross Country
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