Luc Armant and Seiko Fukuoka Naville are the 2020/21 PWC Superfinal champions after a tightly-fought 10-day competition in Disentis, Switzerland.
The last task on Wednesday 18 August was cancelled at noon, leaving Luc Armant with the overall win. He beat Aaron Durogati, who had lead for most of the competition, into second place by 38 points. Adrian Hachen was third.
In the Women’s class, Seiko Fukuoka Naville confirmed she is still the pilot to beat. She won by nearly 100 points over Meryl Delferriere in second place and Nanda Walliser in third. There were eight women in the competition.
The competition saw seven tasks flown: 53.9km, 83.9km. 85.1km, 87km, 97km, 62.3km and 52.1km. Billed as the “first Alpine Superfinal” it was indeed the first Superfinal in history to take place in the European Alps. Disentis is a prime competition venue in the heart of the Swiss Alps and offers spectacular flying of high, glaciated mountain terrain.
Some 103 pilots took part, from 25 countries. However, France, Switzerland and Italy dominated the pilot list, with 25 pilots from France alone. Sixteen Swiss pilots took part, including seven-time Red Bull X-Alps champion Chrigel Maurer, who finished in sixth place overall.
The competition between the gliders was also hot. Niviuk’s X-One was flown by several top pilots, including Aaron Durogati and Chrigel Maurer, and looked like it was going to take first place on the podium as flown by Durogati.
However, the appearance of the new Ozone Submarine harness, designed and flown by winner Luc Armant, added enough extra performance to help Luc win not only the competition, but also three of the seven tasks. The streamlined design is an old idea that Luc started to work on again in 2017. This was its first international debut at a major competition.
Out of the top 10 overall pilots, seven were flying the Ozone Enzo 3. Two were on the Niviuk X-One and one was on a new Gin Boomerang 12.
Felix Rodriguez spoke for all when he said: “Nobody in their wildest dreams expected seven tasks out of a maximum of ten. The pilot level has been fantastic and great conditions gave very technical flying.”
Find the full results here.
TOP 10
1st Luc ARMANT (FR, Ozone Enzo 3)
2nd Aaron DUROGATI (IT, Niviuk X-One)
3rd Adrian HACHEN (CH, Gin Boomerang 12)
4th Stephan MORGENTHALER (CH, Ozone Enzo 3)
5th Baptiste LAMBERT (FR< Ozone Enzo 3)
6th Christian MAURER (CH, Niviuk X-One)
7th Honorin HAMARD (FR, Ozone Enzo 3)
8th Joachim OBERHAUSER (IT, Ozone Enzo 3)
9th Julien WIRTZ (FR, Ozone Enzo 3)
10th Ferdinand VOGEL (DE, Ozone Enzo 3)
TOP WOMEN
1st Seiko FUKUOKA NAVILLE (FR, Ozone Enzo 3)
2nd Meryl DELFERRIERE (FR, Ozone Enzo 3)
3rd Nanda WALLISER (CH, Ozone Enzo 3)
4th Yael MARGELISCH (CH, Ozone Enzo 3)
5th Constance METTETAL (FR, Ozone Enzo 3)
TOP TEAMS
1st Ozone
2nd Gin Gliders
3rd Niviuk
4th Flying Tree Environmental Management
5th Chinese Taipei Gliding Sports Association