Good weather and conditions allowed the organizers to open the window at 12:30 for a 91 km race through 4 turnpoints. The beginning has not been very fast due to the weak lift in some places, which forces the pilot to exercise their patience -and with some bomb-outs shortly after the start. Most of the pilots have already done the turnpoint of restaurant of Sommand and the Lake Pertuis (near Avoriaz), where they had to deal with some turbulence. Now (15:25) they have crossed the valley of Samoens and are on the way to the farthest turnpoint, Lachat d’en Haut. After that they have to fly back to Corche Blanche and then goal at Morzine. The conditions have gone weaker now and there are big blue holes on the way so it will not be easy… We don’t expect anybody to arrive before 5 pm.

It was a hard race, with some difficult parts -which meant that the landing was not so massive today. 46 pilots completed the 88 km task that took them from Avoriaz to Lake Leman, the Samoens valley and then back to Morzine. The first 2 pilots in goal were former World Champion Luca Donini (IT, Gradient Avax) and task-2 winner Urban Valic (SLO, Mac Para Magus), who did a very tight last glide at full speed to the goal that Luca won for very little (both gliders collapsed in the process). Next in goal and with only seconds of difference were Christian Tamegger (AU, Gin Boomerang 4), Jean Marc Caron (FR, UP Targa), Paul Schmidt (BE, Aircross Ultima 3) and Max Jeanpierre (FR, Gin Boomerang 4). The first woman was Petra Krausova (CZ, Mac Para Magus).
Luca commented that they didn’t fly very fast today and that the turnpoint of Chalet Pertuet (the 3rd) was quite difficult, “but it was a good flight” he said. Petra said it was a nice flight, “not so rough“. 
The pilots flew for around 4 hours and they are all downloading their tracks now.
*See today’s pictures in our ALBUM here.
*Provisional results in our Results page.

*Please note that results are posted in our results page on the next day by 10 am, if they are available (before that, please contact the organization as the results are not under our responsibility - we just publish them!)

At 13:45 the pilots competing in these Europeans launched from Col de Fornet (Avoriaz, 2200m) in beautiful sunny conditions for a 88 km task. We had back wind during the first 2 hours at the take-off, but as soon as the sun moved towards the east a gentle breeze appeared from the right side and everybody started flying. The start point opened at 14:45, 18km from the 1st turnpoint: the Refuge of Dent d’Oche. The circuit is now taking the pilots to Pylone des Brasses, Chalet Pertuet and Telepherique du Pleney. Then to the goal in Les Gets, next to the Tourist Office. The first pilots are expected to arrive at around 5pm. +News later! 

These two Slovenian brothers managed to take the 1st and 3rd place on the fast task of Saturday 8^th, and raise their team to a 5^th place in the Nations ranking after 2 valid tasks –before France and Germany! Urban (26), who flies since 12 years ago and has been competing for 6, says that although they do the same competitions and tasks, they usually take different ways. “Fortunately, we reach the same places most of the times!” he says, and maybe that’s the reason why it is not rare to see them share podiums. In the Caribbean XC Challenge last year Aljaz (27) was 1^st and Urban 2^nd; in the Swiss Open 2006 it was Urban on top of the podium. 

Here, the luck has been closer to Aljaz who got the 2^nd place on the first task while his brother ended up landed after only 13 km… After 2 tasks, Aljaz is on the 2^nd place overall! The brothers fly with the new Magus proto glider from Mac Para, a glider they received only a couple of weeks ago. “I’m very satisfied with it, it is surely one of the best gliders at the moment” says Urban. 

Watch out for these boys!  

A sky totally covered by cirrus did not allow for a new (3^rd) task today. The pilots and the organizers waited until around 3 pm for the conditions to improve but there was no luck. The pilots used the para-waiting time for taking a siesta or playing with their toys. Once the task was cancelled, everybody took off and some even caught lift in the valley of Morzine. At least some flying!
One bad news from yesterday is that the Czech pilot Martin Orlik suffered a bad landing and injured his ankle, after another pilot spiralled down before him and caused turbulence that collapsed his glider. He was low and touched the ground very fast. Martin was on the 16^th place overall after 2 tasks.

In today’s briefing, the meet director Ali Gali emphasized that acro manoeuvres are totally forbidden at the goal / landing area for the safety of all pilots, as well as cloud flying. There were complaints from two teams about pilots flying in the clouds yesterday, an issue that is being checked by the organization through the track logs. If they find evidence of deliberate flying in the clouds, the pilots could be punished with all the task’s points to zero.  

Slovenian pilot Urban Valic (Mac Para) was the fastest yesterday, with a time of 1 hour, 12 minutes and 59 seconds to complete the 46,9km task. Chrigel Maurer (CH, Advance Omega) was the 2nd, in 1:13:34, and 3rd was Aljaz Valic (SLO, Mac Para) with only 20 seconds more than Chrigel. The circuit took the pilots around the valley of Morzine, from Mont Chery to Le Marteau, then to Avoriaz, the chalet of gold mines, La Chaux, the restaurant of Nyon (where tonigh we’ll watch the final match of the football World Cup), Corche Blanche and goal at the HQ in Morzine. 114 pilots completed the task.
The first woman yesterday was Karin Appenzeller (CH, Advance Omega) on the 33rd place overall.
By Nations, Switzerland is still 1st, with Austria on 2nd place and Italy on 3rd. Slovenia is now on the 5th position, after the Czech Republic (4th).
Today we have high clouds that might lower the quality of the thermals. The pilots are waiting on Mont Chery for a new task today.
*Full results in the Results page, here.
*See +new pictures in our ALBUM.

Up to 3 times today’s task was changed by the meet director and the pilots committee. First, a race of 90 km was set, but seeing the low cloudbase and the weak conditions, it was changed for a 56 km course. However, the base was still low and one of the turnpoints was below so it had to be changed. This time, the task would be 52.6 km, but then the windummies could not get any higher and instead of raising the clouds were lower, which made the organizers to decide that it would be a race with elapsed time. When the window was already open but nobody had yet launched, the meet director Ali Gali announced the last change of the day, one of the turnpoints that had been covered by the clouds was replaced by an easier one, which left a circuit of 46,9 km in total. The takeoff was in the shade for a long time, and the weak breeze we had  changed direction all the time. The first pilots who took off had to work hard to climb but slowly the conditions improved a bit and the rest of the pilots field got very impatient to leave, creating a chaos at the takeoff, with pilots stepping on other pilots gliders, struggling to go before eachother and pushing risky starts.
Fortunately, in the air things changed and we saw a substantial improvement of the conditions, which progressively accelerated the rhythm of the race. The task, with 6 turnpoints and goal, was completed relatively easily as all the mountain tops worked very well and the clouds helped for the transitions –perhaps too much because we all had to pull big ears to stay below them. We even saw a few pilots fly in the clouds more than it is allowed by the regulations…
Maybe the most beautiful part of the task was flying over the famous ski resort of Avoriaz, where many pilots flew close to eachother above those impressive precipices. The arrival to goal was again a scene, with at least 70 pilots coming at the same time.
This successful 2^nd task is by individual times so we cannot know who is the winner yet, but we’ll let you know tomorrow morning – stay tuned!

We have again a beautiful morning here in Morzine so everybody expects to have a very good flying day.
The weather forecast is good for today and the following days, and all the pilots are now leaving for Mont Chery, Les Gets, from where a new task will start. We’ll let you know later in the day how it went, by images and words.

 Check out the views of Les Gets through their webcams here

According to the World Anti-Doping Code adopted by the FAI in 2004, any pilot in this Championship might be required for anti-doping controls by a medical doctor designated by the French anti-doping agency. The list of prohibited substances includes marihuana, alcohol and beta-blockers, among others, and a positive result means the immediate exclusion of the pilot from the competition. This morning, it was announced that such tests will probably be applied in the next days to randomly chosen pilots. 

“Consumption of some substances, notably alcohol and marihuana, is incompatible with flight safety. Therefore, regardless of whether or not anti-doping controls are carried out at a competition, all CIVL officials (such as Stewards, Jury Members, Judges) have a duty to intervene and prevent any person whom they suspect to be under the influence of such intoxicating substances from flying” say at the Free Flight Commission of the FAI. 

The anti-doping procedures could be applied at any CIVL-sanctioned competition and, in a future, a “very limited number of FAI competitors” could become liable to out-of-competition testing. 

The news was not happily received by all the pilots, but we heard some of them comment that it will be much more interesting to see what happens at the next Acro World Championship if these anti-doping controls are applied… 

Sorry to tell you that the conditions did not improve during this afternoon for a task. The clouds were low at the Samoens valley as well, and we even had some rain. After waiting for more than an hour to see how it evolved, the meet director concluded that it could not be possible to set a task, and everybody was sent home for another day off –although a few pilots decided to do a little flight anyway. Tonight there are a couple of video projections and conferences at Morzine; we never get bore here but we all expect a good flying day tomorrow!