Sunday 21st August 2016

As the competitors, judges and officials arrived at Farnham, Canada for the 6th World Canopy Piloting Championships, so did the wind.  The Official Practice Period started yesterday, but today the competitors have been unable to take advantage of it.  This period continues until 15.00 hrs tomorrow when the last lift takes off prior to the Competitors' Meeting (16.00) and the Official Opening Ceremony (17.00).

This does give Bjorn Korth, Chief Judge, his event judges; Bernard Nicolas (Speed) Craig Bennett (Distance) and Aggie Sobzynska-Solomon (Accuracy) a chance to ensure the course is set up correctly and run their Judges' Seminar to discuss the rules and their interpretation.  It would have been nicer if they also had some competitors on the course.

Judges Seminar :  Back row, l - r:  Craig Bennett, Bernard Nicholas, Anders Berggren;  Next row l-r  Pekka Salmela, Dr. Rainer 'Exi' Hoenle,  Barb Davies, Rina Gallo;  Next row l-r Neil McGrath, Sara Montenegro, Bjorn Korth;  front row l-r Jaromir Blaschke , Nicky Young, Gundel Klement, Agnieska Sobczynska- Solomon

The Registration of 83 competitors has been confirmed by Marylou Laughlin, FAI Controller, although one, Tom Gilmartin, Australia, will not be competing as he suffered an injury during the Team training earlier this week - we hope he makes a good recovery and enjoys the experience of being at this World Meet.

Later today everyone has been invited to a reception "meet and greet" - in the town of Farnham, organised by the local Mayor and councillors.

Skydive TV are also here, so will be broadcasting from the competition and will give us exciting coverage of the competition as it happens. Check out their 1st video of the competition below. They'll be making a video presentation each day - so keep coming back!