The completion of the Portuguese XC Open World Series paragliding competition on 3 September brought the 2011 series to a close. Australia’s Godfrey Wenness won overall on an Advance Omega 8, taking the top prizes for both Open and Serial classes. Petra Zellweger of Switzerland was top woman, flying a Swing Astral 6.
The series consisted of three rounds: The first, in Araxa, Brazil ran from 10-15 october 2010, and was followed by the Australian round, 24 January to 2 February. The Portuguese event was last, and started on 27 August, finishing on 3 September
Both the Portuguese and the Brazilian rounds ended up with only two scored tasks, whereas ten out of a possible 11 were scored in Manilla. In the overall results 50% of the flown tasks of the 2011 season were scored, which meant each pilot’s best seven tasks. Many pilots flew in only one of the events, so if this was either the Brazilian or the Portuguese event, the pilot would be at a disadvantage overall, having only two scores to tot up. The winners of both the Brazilian and the Portuguese rounds, Gustavo Fereira (BR) and Martin Muller (CH) only ranked 26th and 37th overall, for this reason.
Godfrey Wenness actually finished second place on his home turf, 40 points behind fellow Australian Ivan Anissimov who flew an R10.2. But they had to drop three of their scores and count only the best seven, and Ivan had to drop a relatively high scoring one which gave Godfrey the overall win.
From the 2012 XC-Open World Series on, there will be a continuous XC-Open World Ranking with a devaluation curve of the scores of each comp over a period of four years, similar to the WPRS ranking.
The first competition of the 2012 XC-Open World Series will be in Carpinteria Argentina from 21-27 November. After that will be Manilla, Australia again from 04-11 February 2012
The XC-Open World Series is looking into introducing live tracking for all pilots in all it’s competitions.
Full results are on the XC Open Word Series website.
Open Class FAI3
1. Godfrey Wenness (Advance Omega 8 ) AU
2. Ivan Anissimov (Ozone Mantra R10.2) AU
3. Lorenz Fritz (Ozone Delta) DE
Women
1. Petra Zellweger (Swing Astral 6) CH
2. Lydia Muys (Swing Arcus 6) DE
3. Kirsty Withecombe (Gin Sprint) AU
Serial Class
1. Godfrey Wenness (Advance Omega 8 ) AU
2. Lorenz Fritz (Ozone Delta) DE
3. Ion Ghilescu (Advance Omega 8 ) MD
Sports Class
1. Lorenz Fritz (Ozone Delta) DE
2. Paul Kimber (Nova Factor) AU
3. Xavier Girin (Gradient Aspen 3) FR
Fun Class
1. Jerry Furnell (Nova Mentor 2) AU
2. Warren Hall (Advance Epsilon 6) AU
3. Tony Nelson (Firebird Raven) GB
• Got news? Send it to us at news@xccontent.local.
Subscribe to the world’s favourite hang gliding and paragliding magazine
