Josh Cohn squeaked a win at the US Paragliding Open 2021 in Chelan, Washington State last week. The veteran competition pilot was flying a Niviuk X-One and was just five points ahead of second-placed Matt Henzi (Ozone Enzo 3) after five full tasks. Brad Gunnuscio (Enzo 3) was third.
Top woman was Galen Kirkpatrick (UP Meru), with Bianca Heinrich (Niviuk Icepeak Evox) and Violeta Jimenez (Ozone Zeno) second and third on the Women’s podium. There were eight women competing.
Colin Rathburn won the hotly contested EN C class placing 12th overall on his Ozone Delta 4. The EN C class was dominated by the Ozone glider – 13 of the top 15 pilots were flying either a Delta 4 or its lightweight equivalent the Alpina 4. There were 36 pilots flying EN C in total.
The comp saw an average task length of 106km over the week. It started with a 126.4km race-to-goal north, and was followed by tasks of 80.1km, 102.8km, 120.3km and 104.5km.
Josh placed 14th, 13th, 1st, 1st and 3rd in the five tasks. In a sign of just how tight the racing was, on the 120km Task 4 he won by a mere 0.4 points; he scored 995.7 for the day against Manuel Quintanilla’s (MEX, Gin Bommerang 11) 995.3.
Around 120 pilots took part in the comp, which ran from 18-23 July 2021 and was organised by Matt Senior.
