Pilots woke up to a beautiful Superfinal Day 4 in Disentis on Thursday. An 87km task was set, in which Michael Maurer took the overall task win. Seiko Fukuoka-Naville won the women’s competition again, taking her back into seventh place overall. Top of the overall rankings after Task 4 is Mr Consistency, Aaron Durogati.
Ruth Jessop reports:
The weather today was stunning with clear blue skies and fantastic views of the alps. An 87km task east to Davos was set. It looked straightforward. Follow the line, but nobody did. A group of paragliding sky gods went north, and another group of sky gods went south.
The conditions were smooth and chilled at the start, then the thermals got stronger and rougher south of the main valley with a big convergence southwest of Davos.
The route to the north proved slower and more difficult, but smoother and with stunning views, so it wasn’t such a big mistake after all.
It was a very fast race, and the winners got to end of speed section in less than two hours.
But what was perhaps one of the most wonderful sights in this competition was the race to end of speed along the ridge southwest of Davos. The youngest pilot in the competition, Ivan Haas was flying right at the front with, just behind him, two World Cup veterans, Xevi Bonet Dalmau and Stefan Wyss. A quick peek at World Cup records as everyone was relaxing on the final glide down the Davos ski slopes revealed that Xevi and Stefan were busy winning tasks in Granada, Spain in June 2000, four months before Ivan was born! Paragliding, the sport with a wingspan across the generations!
Congratulations to both young and old who flew so well today.
Just a reminder that we have our star cameraman Philippe Broers doing live transmissions from launch (10-11h) and goal when the pilots arrive. Please subscribe to the channel if you would like to receive automatic notifications of the live transmissions.
The first 98 pilots made goal, and thus all flew the same distance, and gained the same distance points. Today’s winner is therefore the one with a combination of the best speed points and lead out points.
Top 3 overall
1 – Michael Maurer
2 – Dominik Breitinger
3 –Ulrich Prinz
Top 3 Women
1 – Seiko Fukuoka-Naville
2 – Yael Margelisch
3 – Meryl Delferrière
Top 3 teams
1 – Gin Gliders
2 – Flying Tree Environmental Management
3 – Niviuk
Top 3 speed points
01:48:14 Michael Maurer (average speed of 46.3 km/h).
01:49:01 Ivan Haas
01:49:02 Baptiste Lambert
Top 3 leading points
161.8 Dominik Breitinger
160.8 Tim Bollinger
160.4 Michael Maurer
The commentary, leaderboard and live tracking are all on the live app / web page.
All the results are here
