Day 1

Howdy folks this is Brad Gunnuscio and Im here to tell you about day 1 of the 2011 Paragliding World Champioships.

 A 150KM task was called (what a way to start it off with a bang) launch was very windy, any more wind and the day probably would be called. There was lots of excitement on launch people getting dragged through other wings, big collapses and the things that happen when your trying to launch a 2 liner glider when its blowing 15-18 mph.  Team USA all had very nice launches though and we were off for a nice ridge soaring session. The start was 20 km away so we all started ridge soaring in that direction. About 9 km away is when I finally found my first good thermal and we started specing out, we all know the crux of the flight is the mountain pass and thats where the start was, when my gaggle left for it I stayed to in light lift until they started to climb and then came in and joined. We got up to about 9,500 feet which is really good for the pass but the lift died off with 6 minutes left to go so we just sat there sinking and started the race with a lot less altitude. I started to look around and Jack Brown and Josh Cohn were both with me and we were at the top of the stack!! Woohoo I knew then this is going to be a great competition for us!! 

We had a very slow time after the start and the thermals were all wind blown and couldnt get up that high till we got well away from the pass, in the mean time pilots were out in the middle of the valley finding the convergance and getting a much easier line, I resisted to go for it as I was in the company of some pretty good pilots, Russel Ogden, the Valic brothers and of course Jack and Josh, so we kept frisbeeing along until we got to the city of Avila then the climbs got a lot better. Unfortunatly after Avila you cant go over 3,048 meters or you break airspace and zero for the day... :( very sad as the clouds really wanted us and that was the toughest for me staying under that limit. People were turning and it looked like to me breaking the airspace all over, we will see when the results come out later. I left a thermal at 2,900 and went right to the limit with my glider at pulley to pulley, The Valic brother next to me did a full stall to not break the limit and I wasnt prepared to do that and luckily I stopped climbing right at 3,048!!! You can imagine my relief.... after that I started leaving the climbs at 2,700 and still was getting ripped into the sky, I started looking for gliders sinking and taking any sinky line I could get.

I am  not quite sure why we are having the world championships at a site with this kind of airspace all over the place, people stalling their wings and doing crazy maneuvers to stay out of the airspace is just not safe... I saw people with line twist s and all sorts of fancy postitions just to not break the airspace... Whatever thats the game we were playing...

40 km from goal I thought there is so much lift around its time to go on final glide, so Yassen a Valic and I broke off from the gaggle and went on a more direct route, I saw my ground speed was 100 to 105 km an hour!! I figured we could make the glide but hit major sink and  that cost us as the other gaggle found a nice haze dome and looked like a nice easy ride into goal, we on the other hand had to sit in light lift close to the ground and wait for a thermal to come through at about 19 km from goal. When it did it came on it came on with a vengence and we rocketed up and probably left the thermal way to late as we came in speced out to goal and staying under the airspace again became an issue.

In the end Josh crushed it with a 5th place on the day I got some mid 20's Jack and Melanie both had some really bad luck not making it, but they are both really good pilots and this is a very long competition so I expect that they both will fire back with a good day tomorrow!! The Team spirit is high folks we are focused and the sky is the limit!!! (until 3,048 meters that is ;)