Delta News

Two more tasks were flewn at the 21st European Championships. The conditions came more and more fast with quite big convergence zones beeing famous for fast flying in the area.

Zanoccos fabulous comments for the last day:
A memorable sunny day. An awesome situation for cross-country flying in the whole area of all central nothern Appennines mountains.

In the detailed weather information, he was stateing of forming of important convergence lines over the main ridges.

Petsch's comment after landing on 4th place in goal after completing task 8 was: impressive 60km of almost straight flying. Raceing under these clouds was incredibly fast but exhausting.

The weather forecast for task 9 was even better. So again, as usual within these championships, no sissy days in such forecasts. Another 187km was the last task for the championships. The winner was already quite obvious, Alex Ploner did an impressive championship flying without any mistake, and did never choose a bad day. But the run on the places below him was still on. Primoz did win the day with an impressive average of 67 km/h, and this over the entire 187km one leg to the north, one to south all the way to casteluccio and back to the goal in Sigillo.

Franz on our side showed his big level and could make use of the huge experience (he is in the Swiss Deltaleague since 1985!). Always landing with the top gaggle in the very front top five at almost every task - ended up at overall place 14. Unfortunately he needed a checkup at the doctor on one raceing day, but showed up that nothing bad was producing his leg pain and he could continue raceing.

From Petsch we could say he would be like the German Football Team, getting stronger while the Tournament goes on. Unfortunately for him, there is no KO system with a qualifying round. Every day adds up to the total end result. He could show that he is on fire as well - landed overall place 52 after quite a catch up race.

Damien 36, stable and always quite on the front did poker too much at the last task, wanting to catch up the nations ranking, landed 4km too short on task 9. All the other tasks he showed that he is able to fly with the good pilots!

Jean-Daniel, on of the rookies showed a potential of flying fast when the conditions are fast too. Landed on rank 53 right behind Petsch.

Ubi, stable goal reacher as we are used from him on place 65 and Simon, the other rookie on place 85. Needs to be sayd that he made goal on 3 tasks and on the others he had to land short not long from goal, doing also an impressive first appearance on the big scene!

Congratulations to all the pilots performing at such a level and keep the mood high! You guys rock and we look forward to see more from you!

Not only the pilots went from hell to heaven during this championships, also the supporting team did have periods of downs and ups. The Team was lead after i had to leave back for Switzerland by former League Pilot Christian "Didu" Bärtschi.

A huge thank you for your support, emotions, highs and lows Lina for the cooking and driving, Beni for the driving and marvellous coaching.

The whole Team did a big work in joining the championships. The preparations did start already early this year. It is important in this sport to know the selection very early, the pilots need to organise their jobs and families, some of them are self-employed so they need to manage their company well during this long absence, already this is a big job that needs to be done upfront.

We did prepare ourselves on different levels, not only technicalwise but also what every ones individual goal is, how we want to appear as a team and many more aspects. Knowing that ranking goals is not the main goal an athlete sets to himself. Sure, he can have them, but he needs to set underlying goals that better tells him what to do and how to achive it. This we worked out in several meetings and flying days during the events held in Switzerland (Newcomers Camp, Club Championships, and Swiss Championships). On the technical side, its been worked out on what we use for communication gear and more important, how and what we communicate in the air, keeping in mind to be efficient, not to disturb too much and also reminding that we speak french and german. So only communicate relevant things and this in an effective way. At the physical side, when the weather is good you need a strong physical condition at a base level but also at a flying level. You need to fly a lot upfront also to make sure that the back, the shoulders and the whole body is going well flying a lot for 2 weeks. Also feeling well and "home" inside your harness and knowing your glider by heart.

Franz did get the additional role of the team-captain, haveing to communicate for the team in regards to the sport-aspects. Also, the Teamleader needs a partner to discuss decisions what affects the sport performance of the gang or individual members.

The whole team finally went through up and downs, which is normal in such a setup. We cannot anticipate everything. Still there is a lot to do and we need to change things that we - as a support team and competition coach - can do. We learned a lot on what we need to optimize and did also mistakes. The impact of the team is still very discussed, but i am sure if it is functioning well, a lot can be done to make the pilots do better and more important, be more happy doing it.

So for us the reflection work starts and needs to be done and already start to plan the worlds 2023 for next year, Krushevo, we will be heroes once again!!

Some numbers
The podiums:
1. Alex Ploner, ITA
2. Christian Ciech, ITA
3. Primoz Gricar, GER

Nations:
1. ITA
2. GER
3. CZE

Number of Tasks: 9
Scored KM: 1329.1 km / Average 147.6km per Task
Number of competitors: 95
Number of Nations present: 19 from which 15 europeans

Alex did win with overall points of 8642, average of 960 points per task (very impressive!)
Fastest average: 67km/h, slowest: 40.5km/h. Average average: 48km/h.