Report by U.Dubach - Technical Delegate.
Caution : all downloadable results files of this page are in
acrobat format
 |
CROSS COUNTRY MAGAZINE |
Saturday, September the 9th, 2000
Final task of the millennium tour !
Fantastic day !
Once again it's a hard job for the meet director to set the task.
Nobody can imagine a better suspens !
Andy Hediger is leading the overall PWC ranking by less than 200 points. His mission is to
neutralise Steve Cox, who shows a fantastic strength.
Beside of his Swiss dual with Andy, Steve has also the opportunity to step to the top of
the competition podium. For instance, Patrick Berod is leading the competition
classification by 19 points compared to Steve and only 2 pts compared to Kaspy Henny !!
Another major final is coming from the nation overall ranking where the Swiss team is defending his first place from France. The gap is only 59 points after more than 51000 points scored by those two nations since the beginning of the year !!!
So here is the story :
Task 3
The last flown task of the 2000 PWC season.
The weather conditions were stable and the organiser set a short task of 59 km with a take off from Planpraz, start point at Plaine Joux, the following turnpoints were at Lachat, followed by the Gare de Lognon, tremplin de des Houches and last turnpoint at the Restaurant des Planares and the landing place was at " Bois du Bouchet ".. It's nearly the same task than the two first ones and the pilots perfectly knows how to deal with the race.
But it happens that the course was even more difficult than expected !!
More than 1000 spectators were following the gaggle from the ground. Two times the race
crossed the landing place, the first time P.Berod was leading the race doing no errors !
Steve Cox made a little error at the beginning and sinked in the second group... French
where making the pressure with several pilots in front of the race.
As the pilots were riding to "les Houches" for the hardest turnpoint of the day,
the valley wind began to blow making this part even harder.
Steve made a fantastic come back : from a very bad position, he's the only one who reaches
the front of the course, taking many risks but with the best options. Andy is also still
in the race throwing all his energy in the race !
As the first pilots are disappearing far from the landing place, nobody knows they will succed to found enought thermals to come back...
Finally a first glider appears in the middle of the valley for the last glide. As the
sunset is beginning, nobody can recognize who it is.
Puched by the valley wind, 70km/h, it's the white and red Advance of Steve Cox ! As he
crosses the finish line, two french, Vincent Sprungli and Denis Cortella are following him
full speed, five hundred meters backwards. Then, the yellow Boomerang of Berod appears,
less than five minutes later.
Only six pilots are reaching goal ! Jean Marc Caron, another french and Stefan Stieglair
from Austria are also at goal.
The french made the difference with the Swiss : 4 pilots agains 1 at goal, they wins
the 2000 PWC Nation ranking. It happened for the last time in 94 and since this time Swiss
were 6 times first and French 6 times second !
Steve Cox - Advance
Concerning the competition results, Patrick Berod saves his first place from Steve from only 3 points !
Andy who couldn't reach the goal, succeeds to land a little farther than the other pilots of his group, the 100m he's making with this last glide makes him win 10 points more and after a complete year, 15 tasks and several hundred kilometers in the air around the world he hold the first PWC rank with only 6 points more than Steve, because of those 100m !!!!!
In the women's ranking, Louise Crandal, imperial, easily controlled this final to hold
her first place.
Sandie Cochepain in her town of Chamonix, succeeded to climb on the second step of the
women's PWC podium. She's accompanied by Nicole Nussbaum on the 3rd place.
Here are the 2000 PWC rankings and podiums :
PWC 2000 FINAL OVERALL RANKING
1st - ANDY HEDIGER - Switzerland - Advance - Red Bull - Aeroatelier 2nd - STEVE COX - Switzerland - Advance - Knock Out - Red Bull - Salomon
3rd - JIMMY PACHER - Italy - Gin Gliders - Flyten
1st - LOUISE CRANDAL - Denmark - Gin Glider 2nd - SANDIE COCHEPAIN - France - Edel
3rd - NICOLE NUSSBAUM - Switzerland - Advance
PWC 2000 FINAL SERIAL CLASS RANKING
1st - ANDREW SMITH - Southj Africa - APCO 2nd - OLIVIER LOIODICE - France - Flying Planet
3rd - ROLF DALE - Norway - APCO - Olden
1st - FRANCE
2nd - SWITZERLAND
3nd - AUSTRIA
PWC 2000 FINAL CONSTRUCTOR RANKING
1st - GIN GLIDER
2nd - NOVA
3nd - ADVANCE
PWC 2000 FINAL SERIAL CLASS
CONSTRUCTOR RANKING
1st - APCO
2nd - FLYING PLANET
3nd - NOVA
Task 3 Official Open Class results
Task 3 official Serial Class results
Competition results :
Chamonix Overall ranking
Chamonix Women ranking
Chamonix Serial class ranking
Chamonix Nation ranking
Chamonix Constructor ranking
Chamonix Constructor serial class ranking
Friday, September the 8th, 2000
The task 2 was run :
Plan Praz - Lachat above (Sallanches) - Le Planet (Argentire) - Chamonix for a total
distance of 50km.
Winners :
1 - Kaspar Henny, Switzerland
2 - Patrick Berod, France
3 - Steve Cox, Switzerland
First woman : Louise Crandal, Denmark
A very difficult day for both, pilots and task setting team : ultra stable weather and
thermals not really higher than 2200m.
Finally a course similar to the first one was set. It was amazing to see that about 39
pilots were able to reach goal in such small conditions.
Patrick Berod dominated the first part of the course, coming back in the Chamonix valley
with an advance of about 10 minutes. But on the second part Kasper Henny was able to close
the gap and finally to win the exciting finish by just 17 seconds.
This task showed in an impressive way the actual standard of pilots and material.
Task 2 overall official
Task 2 serial official
Overall competition results after task 2 - official
Serial competition results after task 2 - official
PWC overall classification after Chamonix task 2 - official
PWC serial classification after Chamonix task 2 -official
PWC women classification after Chamonix task 2 - official
PWC nation classification after Chamonix task 2 - official
PWC constructor classification after Chamonix task 2 - official
Thursday, September the 7th, 2000
The day had to be cancelled. The conditions were flyable on the Mont Blanc massif in the afternoon but strong wind would not have allowed a safe task for everybody.
Wednesday, September the 6th, 2000
The 3rd task had to be cancelled due to weak thermals, and wide alto-cumulus fields all these bad conditions did not allow a task today !
Tuesday, September the 5th, 2000
Task: Planpraz above Chamonix - Lachat above Sallanches - Lognan above
Argentires : 65 km
Winner : Stefan Wyss, Switzerland / Nova
2nd : Marco Arnold, France / Gin-Gliders
3rd : Patrick Berod, France / Gin-Gliders
Best woman : Caroline Brille, France / Gin-Gliders (only woman in Goal)
52 pilots in Goal
Andrew Smith leader of serial class PWC classification
An exciting, tacticaly interesting and technicaly demanding race in difficult because
weak conditions.
Especially the second part in the Chamonix valley presented different tactical options.
The young Swiss pilot Stefan Wyss from Interlaken decided the day in his favour on the
last thermal, taking a little more risk for his final glide.
In general, the Swiss and the French dominated, taking nine of the first ten places.
In the PWC general ranking Switzerland took the lead by only 22 points.
In the general ranking Andy Hediger still leads.
Task 1 overall official
Task 1 serial official
PWC overall classification after Chamonix task 1 - official
PWC serial classification after Chamonix task 1 - official
Monday, September the 4th, 200
Another day with very instable conditions, much wind, small showers, so the organisation decided to cancel the task.
Sunday, September the 3rd, 2000
Because of the instable weather conditions the day was cancelled. Better flying conditions are expected for the next days.
