British Open Competitions

It is with great sadness that The British Paragliding Competitions Panel have to announce the death of Innes Powell and Igor Volov in the final task of the British Open in Krushevo on Friday 17th August 2018. Our deep condolences go to the families and friends of the two pilots. The pilots’ families have been informed. We will release more details in due course.

Congratulations to Loris Berta (ITA) for winning the All Comers Open, 2018.

Yuki Sato Colombe (JPN) was 2nd overall and Manuel Laly (FRA) 3rd overall.

Yuki Sato Colombe (JPN) was 1st Woman.

Andrew McNicol (GBR) was 1st in Sports Class, with Simon Twiss (GBR) 2nd and Jacek Krzyzanowski (POL) 3rd.

Magnus Eriksson (SWE) was 1st in Reynolds Class, with Carl Ellinghaus (GBR) 2nd and Kieran Campbell (GBR) 3rd.

Full results are here

https://airtribune.com/british-all-comers-open-2018/info

Registration for the British Paragliding Opens 2018 will open at 09:00 GMT on Saturday 3rd February.

Just to remind everyone that the ‘All Comers’ Open, Feltre, Italy will be ranked by date/time of registration, but NOT payment, so the sooner you register the more likely you are to get a place.

Payment for both comps will begin on Saturday 17th February based on rank and your place at a comp will only be confirmed once you have paid.

The venues for the British Open Competitions 2018 are confirmed as:

‘All Comers’ Open, Feltre, Italy, 21st – 27th July. Registration/practice day 21st, first task 22nd and last task/prize-giving 27th.

‘Championship’ Open, Krushevo, Macedonia 11th – 17th August. Registration/practice day 11th, first task 12th and last task/prize-giving 17th.

Please note both comps will be run over six ‘task’ days ending on the Friday to allow those attending follow-on competitions a day to travel.

Registration for both competitions will open on 3rd February 2018.

2018 is going to be an exciting year for our British competition scene. The Competitions Panel has decided to make a few important changes to the British Open Competitions, to hopefully make them more attractive to a wider audience.

Firstly, a new All Comers Open is to be introduced aimed at those with a minimum of competition experience who’d like to enjoy a fun, well run, Category 2 competition with more of an accent on learning new competition flying skills. We’ve had a lot of feedback from pilots who’ve enjoyed the Ozone Chabre Open and Naviter Open formats and we believe we can incorporate evening debriefs, events and talks from Guest speakers that will appeal to those who want to learn how to progress to the next level. The All Comers Open will take place in Feltre, Italy, from 21st – 27th July 2018. This family friendly venue also played host for the highly successful 2017 World Championships, and meet director will be our own Brett Janaway. Pilots registering for the competition must have competed in at least one competition previously for their registration to be approved. Places will also be reduced to avoid congestion in the air, but tasks will still be challenging enough for the most accomplished pilots.

The approved pilot list will be ordered by time/date of registration and pilots will be invited to pay in ranked order. Registration for the competition will open on 3rd February 2018 and pilots will be invited to pay beginning 17th February.

Secondly, the British Championship will be contested as a single open competition, the British Championship Open, instead of as in previous years being contested over two open competitions, the rationale being that an increasing number of British pilots with time, family, or financial pressures simply can’t afford to attend both open competitions. The British Championship Open will take place in Krushevo, Macedonia, from 11th – 17th August 2018 and the meet director will be Goran Dimiskovski. In line with our new FAI status as a Category 2 nation we now offer very good quality PWC qualification letters. Krushevo will be hosting the World Championships in 2019 too and so our Championship Open should be perfect for other nations’ team pilots looking for racing experience in this paragliding Mecca. Immediately after Krushevo there’s also a PWC in nearby Sopot, Bulgaria and Goran has offered to put on transport (5hrs by coach) for those pilots interested in doing both competitions. As in previous years we expect to be joined by the Dutch for their Championship. Pilots registering for the competition will be required to have a minimum level of competition experience in line with previous years’ British Open Competitions. The approved pilot list will be ordered by pilots’ highest World Pilot Ranking System (WPRS) position in past 2 years and pilots will be invited to pay in ranked order. Registration for the competition will open on 3rd February 2018 and pilots will be invited to pay beginning 17th February.

We will be offering all those who can attend both Opens a 5% retrospective discount. There will also be auto entry to the Championships Open for the top 10 sports and top 10 overall in the All Comers Open. To further reward those that enter both Open competitions there will also be a new Series prize winner.

The All Comers Open will, same as the Championship Open, attract PWC qualification letters and we therefore hope it will appeal to our young BPRA crew and their fellow pilots from other Euro nations, looking for a fun comp where they may also qualify for that all important first PWC season.

These are quite important changes but we believe they will appeal both to those looking to come into our Championship for the first time and those wanting to compete at the highest level.

We look forward to 2018 and wish you all an excellent New Year.

British Paragliding Competitions Panel

The waypoints file for St Andre has now been officially verified and can be download from here

This file supercedes the previous published file.

REGISTRATION IS ON SATURDAY 2ND FROM 5PM TO 8PM APPROX.

Daily competition updates and briefings for pilots will be posted here on this website and also on the Telegram group https://t.me/BritishPGChamps2017.

General updates will also be posted on the British Championship Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/groups/britishparacomps/

Daily task progress will be posted on this website and live tracking will be available at https://lt.flymaster.net/bs.php?grp=2019

The comps panel is delighted to confirm that the UK leg of the British Championships is all set for Croft Farm Water Park, Tewkesbury. 22-29 July.

Registration will be 5-7pm on Saturday with a welcome drink in the bar afterwards. Anyone still looking for accommodation please call Allan at Croft Farm on 01684 772321.

We want to keep registration at the venue fast and simple. Please can you make sure your details are up to date on the website at www.pgcomps.org.uk before Saturday. In particular emergency contact details. We will also ask at registration for an emergency contact DURING the competition, i.e. another pilot, family member or, friend who is ATTENDING the competition.

The weather is improving and we look set for some west to NW days so should be tasking from Wales/borders back to Tewkesbury.

Task setting will be done each evening for the following day and tasks will be posted here and on the website. There will be no download of waypoints to instruments at registration and you will be expected to be able to manually enter them for each task. (For those using Flyskyhy it should be very simple.) We won’t have too many to enter each day so it shouldn’t be too onerous.

First task Sunday 22nd.

Scoring will be done directly from your trackers but you will need to have a backup instrument that can produce a tracklog should the tracker fail.

Daily transport has been arranged, £5/day payable on the coach. For numbers please let us know at registration if you have your own transport arranged.

Look forward to seeing you all on Saturday. All the best.

Guy

The Panel are delighted to announce more details of the UK leg, which you can find here.

Registration for the British Championship 2017 will open on 1st February.

The registration process for 2017 is different to previous years. Before you register for a competition, please read and understand the 2017 registration process, which you can find here.