Day 14 (August 30)
    The sky is covered but there are good conditions in order to make the last task of this great and fascinating World Championship in Brasilia. The organization assigns a task of 74,1 km, practically an outward flight halfway to the take off at Brasilia.

    The Brazilian pilot Betinho Schmitz arrives as first in an "Esplanada invasa" of the frenzy audience, behind him the Japanese pilot Hiroshi Suzuki and the Australian Jon Durand Jr.

    Manfred Ruhmer (ICARO2000 Laminar 14MR), is 7th today and for the 3rd time in a row World Champion on Hang glider class 1. On the 2nd place there is the sensational Robert Reisinger (ICARO2000 Laminar 14MR) and on the 3rd place the very young but already great French pilot Antoine Bosselier (MOYES Litespeed S).

The 10 tasks have been won by:
    Manfred Ruhmer (4), Betinho Schmitz (2), Robert Reisinger (1), Christian Ciech (1), Bruno Guillen (1), Oleg Bondarchuk (1).

For what regards the constructors:
    ICARO 2000 (6), MOYES (3), AEROS (1).

    The results per nations see Austria on the first place, followed by Brazil and France. On the 4th place (not very far from the podium) there is the Italian team.

Manfred Ruhmer's comment:
    At the beginning it didn't look like a flying day, but around noon the weather conditions seemed to get better.


 Photo Flavio Tebaldi

 Photo Flavio Tebaldi

    The target was once again the Esplanada; straight to goal from the take off.

    I really enjoyed the last flight day of this World Championship, while keeping an eye on Robert, I made a safe flight to goal. Robert came into goal after me and we could start celebrating our winning.

    There have been many people watching and the media interest was quite high. They really made you feel like a STAR.

Manfred's Conclusion:
    All together it was definitively the best championship in which I ever flew. Especially the landing field in the middle of the city, the spectators and media interest were quite significant. On the good day the flying conditions were strong and safe.

    In general, the organization did a good job. Only the closing ceremony was a bit disappointing for a World Meet. Especially the trophies that were given to the winners had just the status for a small club competition meeting. But the same happened already at the last Championship in Algodonales with horrible trophies.....and 4 years in Italy, Monte Cucco, there were no trophies at all ...

    I was surprised about the excellent performance of our Laminar hang glider. Especially at high speed level, there was a significant superiority. On good days we could glide between thermals with 85 to 95km/h, 10 to 15km/h more than other hang gliders. This gave, especially Robert and me who have put a lot of time in tuning and optimizing our equipment, an advantage that we haven't seen in the last World's Meet.