Even before the comp started I had been to two
press conferences, one in Taipei and one at the lower launch.
18/07/2004 - It was raining. The buses were sent on a tour of the goal
paddocks. Anita and I went back to the hotel when the buses stopped for
2 hours for lunch at the tea house. 19/07/2004 - No-one knew what the site was really capable of, so we set
a conservative task of 45.6km up the valley (downwind). Won Y0NG MOOK was
the fastest of the 27 pilots in goal, with a time of 1:43. 20/07/2004 - The forecast was better than yesterday so we called a 69.7km
task. There was a turnpoint 9km from goal in the valley, so pilots would be
off the mountains for a difficult final section. It turned out there was a
headwind as the pilots approached goal. 9 pilots got the last turnpoint;
Kojima AKIRA won the day, 200m short of goal. 21/07/2004 - The wind on launch was from the NE when we arrived, so an
out-and-return of 43.3km was set. Park SANG JOON nearly made it with 39.3km.
Most pilots were spread out along the return leg. The lead gaggle was
looking good until about 10km from goal. 22/07/2004 - We set an entry start today. Most (all?) of the Taiwanese
pilots were competing in their first serious competition, so this small
technical variation would give them some extra training in GPS use. The rest
of the task was 50.8km up the valley, then 4.6km back. It turned out that
the first 30 - 40km was downwind, then about 10km was headwind, with the last
bit being crosswind. 2 pilots made goal, and another made the last turnpoint.
The majority hit the headwind then hit the deck. Won Y0NG MOOK completed the
task in 3:09. Son KON SOU took 4:02 to get to goal; he was flying an
intermediate glider and spent about an hour on one section of the ridge. 23/07/2004 - When I suggested a 50.8km speed section, followed by open
distance, the Taiwanese member of the task committee got excited. 12 pilots
completed the speed section. Won Y0NG MOOK was fastest with 2:05 and also
had the best distance of 65.8km. Its rumoured that a Taiwanese pilot flew
101km (new unofficial Taiwan record), but didn't report back as he had a
problem with his GPS. 24/07/2004 - The Koreans were confused; after suffering with colds (hot
weather, cold airconditioning) on the first day, they had expected a rest
day after three days flying (the weather in Korea is different). Now they
were going into the sixth consecutive day of flying a bit weary. There was a closing ceremony; more performances by aboriginals and local
dancers; short speeches by local dignitaries; awards to the 'B' group (spot
landing comp held over the two weekends from the lower launch); awards to
the top 5 (all Koreans); and awards to the top 3 teams (Koreans again). Early start / no start time - The normal practice in paragliding is to
give pilots who start before the 1st start gate (or do not have a tracklog
for the start) 0 points. I believe that this is an extreme penalty for what
is a small potential advantage. It would be more appropriate to adjust
their tracklog by a fixed time, say 5 minutes, plus twice the time they
started early. For example, a pilot who started one minute early would
have their tracklog adjusted by 5 + 2 * 1 = 7 minutes. I was told the reason
for the current extreme penalty is a scorer was caught 'fudging' a friends
start time. Effective validity - Every day at this competition was fully valid. But
not every day had the same effect on the final results. This is because
the GAP (and PWC) scoring systems have a greater spread of points when
there are a lot of pilots at goal. The easiest way to fix this would be to
include a pilots place in the calculation of points. Unless this is done, we
will continue to have competitions with 6 days flying, effectively decided
on two or three days. |
And then
there was the opening ceremony, with performances, speeches and paragliders
spiralling until their wings touched the ground then almost landing on their
feet.
