Day 4 (August 20)
    Strong wind and a strange kind of start (especially dangerous!) influence the 4th day of the comp.

    Manfred gives a clear sign that everybody will have to settle scores with him in this World Cup. In fact he takes off as first, together with Paris, Antoine Boisselier and Curt Warren.

    Manfred arrived first at goal followed by Paris and Antoine. Manfred's direct rivals suffer a tremendous stoppage and therefore lose a lot of points. Betinho arrives 32 minutes after Manfred but seen that he took off 15 minutes later he only has a delay of 17 minutes. Robert Reisinger arrives very late at goal while Alex and Pippo land just before the 2nd turn point. Davide lands at 3km before goal. Tullio, Federico and Christian arrive at goal and therefore the Italian team swifts down at the 4th place at ±400 points behind the French team and with an advantage of only 150 points on the Austrian team.

    It has to be noticed that only 8 pilots reached goal and that the risk of landing round the corner is very big. There are not many pictures today due to low battery; it has really been an unlucky day!


 Photo Flavio Tebaldi

 Photo Flavio Tebaldi

Manfred Ruhmer's comment:
    My day!!!! I take off as first together with Paris, Curt and Antoine. This was perfectly the right decision. As we got into the plateau towards the 1st turn point I looked back and high cirrus clouds created shade over the start area and the pilots that started later had problems with these weak conditions therefore were slower.

    I had a very good run from the beginning and from the 2nd to the 3rd turn point I could take away from my little group. But after the last turn point I made a mistake on this day (the only mistake), by not choosing the right course line that slowed me down a bit. Paris made this last part better and just before the final glide he was a bit ahead and higher than me. But then I took a little bit more risk on the final glide and bypassed Paris who stayed a little more back and higher. I won the day with only a few seconds from Paris.

    Without the mistake of the last part I could have won the day with 5 minutes or more on Paris and even could have got more points. I was all the same happy because in this day I was now leading! Robert had a bad day, he came late into goal. He was sometimes pretty low and also Betinho lost time and points.