Legendary pilot Wirtz is overall third
Vijyender Sharma
Dharmshala---In three out of four tasks at the ongoing AAI Paragliding World Cup, a Frenchman dominated the day's proceedings, as Julien Brung topped the fourth task, which was curtailed from the original 93.8 km at Bir Billing. When the Task Committee declared the weather as dangerous for flying at 1.48 pm, Brung had covered the maximum distance of 34.87 km and points were awarded accordingly.
Despite Spaniard Xevi Bonet Dalmau finishing way down the order in 110th place, continues to lead the overall leaderboard with a total of 2499 points. Winner of Task 2, Xevi Bonet finished way down having flown only a little over 12 km before being forced to come down.
Germany's Michael Kuffer, who ended the day in 16th place remained in overall second place with a total of 2464 points, while French legend Julian Wirtz, winner of Task 3, continues to hold his overall third place with 2448 points.
As expected, the curtailed race shuffled the day's AAI Paragliding World Cup's leaderborad. Brung topped the day's points table with a haul of 205 points, but he is still way down in 42nd place as the points awarded on Friday were way less as compared to earlier days. Despite the testing conditions, Matt Senior who finished second yesterday, managed a repeat performance that will do a world of good. Senior finished the day with 203 points. Perhaps, he benefited from his previous experience of participating in the 2013 Pre-World Cup held at Bir in which he finished in second place. He is now in overall 14th place. Behind the Kiwi, winner of the first Task on Tuesday, Maxime Pinot of France came home in third place to pocket another 193 points.
After three days of perfect weather, the penultimate task of the AAI Paragliding world was curtailed at 1.48 pm, after just an hour and 28 minutes of flying. The low fog cover brought in by the western disturbances resulting in dangerous flying conditions (Level 3) was the reason for stopping the Task and points were awarded on the basis of the distances covered at that stage.
In the morning, the task committee after a long deliberation decided to hand out the task for day, hoping that visibility might improve in the latter part of the day. But due to low pressure and absence of wind meant that visibility progressively deteriorated as the day progressed forcing the technical committee and meet director to stop the task a little more a third of the way with the lead pilot having covered a distance of 34.87 km.
Among the Indians, Ajay Kumar continued to push his performance graph despite carrying a neck pain. The pilot from Manali finished in commendable tied 16th place with a total of 184 points for the day. Gurpreet Dhindsa brought home his glider in 35th place to add another 175 points to his kitty. Local lad Arvind Paul finished third best among Indians with a total of 153 in 65th place.
Among the women, Klaudia Bulgakow of Poland clinched the top spot on the leaderboard with a haul of 173 points, while Petra Slivova of Czech Republic managed a hard-earned second place with 157 points. Annalena Hinestroza of Germany came home in third place to collect 154 points.
Yuki Sato who led the leaderboard among women from the first day, finished in sixth place with 142 points, she also leads the overall leaderboard.
Provisional Results
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