Sunday 17.07.05
    The sun rises up above a ridge next to Lecco town shortly before seven o'clock and nothing remains but to escape from hot tents quickly. Even if there are no clouds in the sky a visibility is miserable because of the high humidity in the air and surrounding ridges can't practically be seen throught the haze.

    "It is forbidden to use the water to fill bottles, flask and ballast," a noticable lettering appears inside the only one toilet room in a restaurant beside headquarters and apart from any shower the temporary campsite begins to miss the ordinary water now. Luckily, a water tap for a garden hose sticks out of the wall on the corner of the bulding and water can be taken up there.

    Twelve people including their bags press inside every small bus at a broil station and after half an hour of zig-zag driving across small villages and on the west side of the hill driver unlocks two gates and stops under a steep slope. Pilots have to climb up on foot above 100 meters to the taking off point now.

    "I'm here for the last time!" shoutes boiled Karel Vrbensky at the moment when a competition director Xavier Murillo is welcoming the pilots who are in this area for the first time. There is enough room for almost 200 paragliders on the steep meadow but there is no possibility to escape from the bright sun on the south oriented slope.

    Every step startles tens of grasshoppers which achieve to nibble through a cell of canopy in a blink of an eye.

    A declared task is 47km long and it spans three turning points today. The goal is located in front of headquarters at Suello village. One hour long starting windows is open fifteen to two and a starting point half an hour later. In view of an unbearable boiling hot and a relatively easy rising up of pre-flyers most of pilots take off after the starting window opening immediately and the large taking off area is almost unpeopled in twenty minutes. Even if a thermal activity is relatively weak today and thermals reach just 1600 meters above sea level more than one hundred pilots succeed in flying over the last turning point at last.

    "We are welcoming the first pilot in the goal, Tomas Brauner from Switzerland! Sorry, from Czech Republic." An Italian speaker reports through a microphone and 46 pilots reached the goal finally. The last of them more than one hour behind Tomas. But the winner of today's task is Michael Witschi from Switzerland. He left the second Tomas Brauner from Czech Republic and the third Rodrigo Monteiro from Brazil behind him.

    Meteorologists tell higher temperatures than today for tomorrow in front of a cold front coming thus everybody is looking forward to Tuesday. Maybe the rain will begin to fall and the temperature will drop down a bit.