Thursday May 3, 2001
    The low morning temperature, relatively heavy dew, the mist in the valley below Stranik and the already obvious vertically stretched cumulous clouds appearing before 9 a.m. in the otherwise clear blue sky indicate what will probably happen after noon when the ground temperature rises to the promised 28oC. Even the cooks in the hangar restaurant intuitively guess the metrological situation and one of them yells out over a pile of cut potatoes and meat at 9:30, " Boys, the gulash today will be divine!". It was clear. Selecting a discipline for today would not be easy.




    In light of the probability of showers, a flat triangle of 45 km in total, with the first turning point at the hotel Husarik, south of the city of Cadca, the second turning point at the chateau Budatin on the northern edge of the city of Zilina and the goal line stretched across the usual landing ground below Stranik, was announced. The arrival direction was set past the village of Teplicka.




    Amongst the three women signed up in the race this year for Paragliding Cup Stranik 2001, is Hanka Matyaskova, who is well known to all competitors by her non-competing flying in last year's league races, and that most notably on Kozakov. Hanka decided this year to finally compete in a large-scale event to publicly display her qualities.




    The start window was this time opened by 12:30. At that time already several early birds were up in the air and climbing without problem high above the starting ground. There was nothing to wait around for and the racers took off one after another.

    After just 25 minutes of the opening of the start window, the first 19-member group finished turning the climb above Stranik and headed North toward Cadca. No sign of the preceding storms anywhere.

    The thermic conditions of today turned out not to be so simple, and so, many of the starting racers ended up dishonorably beneath the hill on a field by Teplicka. The cloud bases were to be found at around 2,400 meters above sea level, but their development was very quick. Around 3 p.m. the peaks of the majestic cumulous clouds began to melt into a layer and shade vast areas. But by then already the first group of five racers had photographed the second turning point on the North side of Zilina. The first to turn was the brand new Magus with Marcel Konecny on board and he immediately headed along the home stretch for the goal line. An area with a 4-meter dropping though changed Marcel's lust for victory into an unhappy petering out approximately two kilometers before the goal line, and slowed the remaining four racers for an extended length of time in a weak riser, which Marcel inadvertently missed. In the final stretch Tomas Lednik out flew Juraj Kleja right before the goal line and following on their heels was Michal Orolin and two minutes later, Petra Krausova flew over the goal line.



    Following the time evaluation in the overall placing of the race, Tomas Lednik came in first, followed by Juraj Kleja and Michal Orolin third. Meanwhile for some unknown reason Marcel Konecny received zero points for today's race. Could it be that in his dejection he didn't turn in his GPS report to the judges? And as far as the divine gulash goes, the hangar chef wasn't exaggerating one bit ...