Matjaz Feraric and Rafael Kerin agree to publish their article about PGAWC. Here it is.
The first competition of 2010 season in Paragliding Accuracy World Cup (PGAWC) was held in Batu, on Java island in Indonesia. We already have had some very positive experiences with Indonesian organizers and we were happy to see they came and collected us from the airport and took us to Batu city. It was a two hours trip and we have already seen displays and posters inviting people to the PGAWC competition. Since a city was celebrating a win of National title in football it was not easy to draw attention also for a paragliding competition but they have made it. A perfect accommodation, an excellent food and a great hospitality just increased already very positive impression. After practice session, there was an opening ceremony with a draw of starting numbers and an excellent entertaining programme. The first competition day allowed organizers to complete three competition rounds, despite 82 pilots attending (from 14 different countries). Landing place was something extra special, right in the middle of rice fields and in case somebody would miss it, he had to search for a place less soaked with watter. After the first competition day, there was rather a big group of candidates for a major trophy but only Chinese pilot Sheng with all three pad scored, did everything perfect. After fifth round, the worst score was dropped but still in such a demanding conditions it was hard not to do any mistake. For a second day, there were two rounds predicted and for a last day –a final round, so six comp.rounds. Weather was fine and fifth round was already completed early afternoon and showed a little bit different picture. Some of pilots dropped big scores and managed to climb much higher. Slovenian pilot Matjaz Feraric manage to score 1cm in two rounds in a row and came to the very top, leaving Chinese Quiang Sheng only 5cm behind. Both were followed by local pilots Yudha Whyu and Jonny Effendy, Monte Negro pilot Sead Franca and next Slovenian pilot Jaka Gorenc. So, very interesting mix of pilots on the top. Since the last round started in an opposite ranking order, everybody had to wait till the last flight in order to get a winner. Also for a team competition there was a tough firght among teams Yagababa, Kanja and Garuda. With a high number of spectators, atmosphere at landing site started to boil when there were only top ten pilots at the take off area. Some skilled pilots did a mistake but only Sead Franca constantly climbed toward the top. Sheng managed to impress the crowd with attractive landing on 1cm and he was waiting for the last one to come. Matjaz had some advantage but he was still on very thin ice and he could not afford any mistake. His final approach was escorted with a total silence and with some small corrections, he managed to complete his flight with only 1cm and by winning a competition. The spactators were applauding to the winner, like he would be a local pilot. They were really enthusiastic and happy, because three local pilots were sharing fourth place with the same score. So, a final top three ranking started with: Feraric (SLO) 8cms, Sheng Guang (CHI) 13cms and Franca (MNE) 45cms. In female competition Milica Bicanin (Serbia) won with 848cm, second place was for Ifa Kurniawati (Indonezia) 1011cm and third place for Ye Lei (China) 2360cm. Also a team competition was interesting till the very last round. Team Kanja (Slovenia) finished third with 1336cms and unfortunately lost a better position in last two rounds. A local team Garuda secured a second place with a great finish and scored a total of 1160cms. Top team on the competition was Yagababa Dravograd (Slovenia) with a score of 534cms. A final act on the competition field was a fun competition round and a local pilot Thomas Widuanato was good enough to win with a »death center« score.
Next competition will be held in Croatia, a well known and interesting competition area which already hosted some competitions of PGAWC and also last year`s World Championship. All the results and a lot of photographs can be seen on www.pgawc.org