The 11th paragliding World Cup Superfinal kicked off in Disentis, Switzerland on Monday 9 August. A field packed with the world’s very best pilots battled it out over a 54km task, with Joachim Oberhauser and Seiko Fukuoka-Naville topping the rankings after the first task.
Ruth Jessop reports:
Day one of the first ever Alpine Superfinal started off with weather that didn’t even seem to impress the Highland cows grazing in front of HQ.
A short sharp 54km task was set, with a turnpoint at Flims and goal at Llanz. The day was slow to launch but once it got going, what a race! It was anything but a straightforward ridge run. An X-Alps breakaway group led by Christian Maurer and Aaron Durogati took a route much further into the mountains reaching heights of 3,300m with stunning views of the glacier and great, grey rock faces.
Meanwhile, Honorin Hamard led the charge on the front ridge.
Between the first and second turnpoints some of the leaders from the first part of the race got stuck. From what looked as if it was going to be a Swiss whitewash, Italians Joachim Oberhauser and Aaron Durogati took end-of-speed, almost neck and neck.
“It was a day where it was turbulent in places, but an appropriate task given the conditions”, Stephan Morgenthaler confirmed.
The first 62 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/time points and lead-out points.
Top 3 overall
1 – Joachim Oberhauser
1= Aaron Durogati
3 – Adrian Hachen
Top 3 Women
1 – Seiko Fukuoka-Naville
2 – Constance Mettetal
3 – Nanda Walliser
Top 3 teams
1 – Gin Gliders
2 – Mac Para
3 – Ozone
Top 3 speed points
01:13:14 Joachim Oberhauser (average speed 39.5km/h)
01:13:19 Aaron Durogati
01:13:36 Adrian Hachen and Simon Mettetal
Top 3 leading points
138.6 Honorin Hamard
121.5 Christian Maurer
120.8 Sergi Claret
All the results are available here
Don’t forget, you can follow the commentary, the leaderboard and tracking on the live app (which is also now a webpage) at: https://live.pwca.org
