report and pictures by F.Escriba, Technical delegate

Caution : all downloadable results files of this page are in acrobat format

Saturday 19

Sorry for the delay of this last report.
No Internet connection in Rio to update the site.

This last day will probably remain as a very bad memory for many pilots.
As weather conditions were still improving, this day was the best of the week. A 59,3km air speedrun was set using the clock start. 49 pilots made goal. It was a real beautiful race with good thermals and options. But the problem came from the organisors that opened one of the clock start 2min too late and another one 6min30 too late...
For this reason, some pilots decided to leave the start area at the right moment but with wrong clock start stripes on the ground, trusting the proof of their GPS. Some other, respecting the PWC rules that says that the photos are over ruling GPS evidence, decided to wait the real opening of the stripes. Some of them probably landed or had difficult moments making low points. At night, the task was finally scored. As pilots were waiting for the results at the central place of the town, provisional results were published at the head quarter. As soon as the results were available, a Swiss pilot made a protest asking the organisors to cross check GPS evidence and photos evidence. The protest was based on the fact that pictures are over ruling GPS. He was asking to change the results in order to give to each pilot the start time of their photos. This was the end of the task because such results were leading some of those pilots to another protest (some of them were loosing 15min in the sanction and were disapearing in the classification). The lack of time due to the prize giving ceremony leaded the technical delegate to ask the jury for a decision. This jury decided to cancel the task because of unfairness. The question that remains now is to know, if the unfairness is now inferior than before the invalidation of the best task we did in the whole week. The story is not completely over because some pilot complained concerning the cancellation. To conclude this report, I would like to say that the PWC is now able to be nearly independant concerning sportive management aspects. It's a pitty that an event at the other side of the world failt because of the faillure of a startpoint. We need to work hard to avoid this in the future.

Here are the results of the canceled task :

Task 4 - Open Class
Task 4 - Serial Class

Governador Valadares - Brazil 2000 PWC
Open class general Results
Serial class general results
Women results
Nation results
Constructor results

You will also note that the general classification has been changed due to the disqualification of Patrick Berod from the first task that he originally won.

Task 1 official results - Open class - Serial class
Task 2 official results - Open class - Serial class
Task 3 official results - Open class - Serial class

PWC classification after the first event
Overall - Open class
Overall - Serial class
Constructor - Open class
Constructor - Serial class
Women
Nation

Report : GPS evidence during Brazil

Friday 17

The first 2000 valid PWC task was run today.

Running with the wind, the pilots flew a 53km Air Speed run (this is the name of the task where we use clock start). The race was very tactical. Many pilots didn’t notice a big cloud, at the backside of take off, was slowly moving to the clock start area. Most of them, taking off early, soon landed. The ones who succeeded to stay in the air and the next, made a tactical clock start, choosing the best moment to start their race.

A first group, using the 14h30 start, has decided to take the shortest way; around the main road. They were very fast at the beginning but they arrived into a big blue zone and spent a lot of time to reach the cloud base again. Some very motivated pilots took the risk to fly very far from the road, at the North, to reach a better cloud area. At the end, these two groups landed together at "ƒngenero Caldas" a little town 47km from take off.

The best option was to cross the main road to the South, just after the start area. It’s exactly what did the 14h45 starting group. Reaching a little ridge 30km South East of take off, they could catch a cloud street what leaded them to goal.

22 pilots finally completed the task.

Once again, Andrew Smith wins the task in serial class
Steve Cox is winning  in open class

Task 3 - Open Class provisional results
Task 3 - Serial Class provisional results

Task 3 Picture page

Thursday 16

Conditions are still improving, but the moisture is still important. Cloudbase is only at 1000m above the ground and big congestus are developing along the flatlands.
So the task setting is really tricky to get the best tasks from these conditions. After two briefings at take off, the pilots are finally flying to the west for an "hin and back" speedrun. The first group is flying very fast but lands after 10km. The second gaggle is slower but found better conditions at the same place. For the next ones it's becoming very hard because of an enormous cloud, that spread his shadow on the take off mountain. Half of the pilots are landing at the bottom.
At the end, after Patrick Berod,  it's another French who wins the task in open class. Andrew Smith (South Africa) is winning serial class. Unfortunately, this task is not valid for PWC because only 10 pilots flew the minimum distance (25km). So this task will only count for the competition ranking and is scored on 500 pts

Task 2 - Open Class provisional results
Task 2 - Serial Class provisional results

Wednesday 15

Task 1 - Open Class provisional results
Task 1 - Serial Class provisional results

Under a grey sky, the pilots are fighting very low to stay in the air. Most of them are landing soon. Patrick Berod (France) catch a better thermal and lands far away of everyone. Luis Rosenkjer (Argentina) wins in the serial class.

This task is not valid for PWC, and will only count for the competition on 900 pts

Task 1 Picture page