Day Three Worlds

The Paragliding World Championships are underway, but we've yet to fly a task. People are starting to joke about the "Curse of Pinzgau," a town in Austria that hosted the Worlds a few years back. They flew two tasks there in dangerous conditions in two weeks... On the other hand we're getting caught up on work, running, rain, etc. The locals love the rain as there's been a serious drought on for years. When we arrived it was pretty brown, now it looks nice and green, a bit more like the province's name of New South Wales. There's even a fair amount of water in the formerly bucolic creek behind the campground.

There is, despite the lack of flying, an incredible amount of nationalistic bitching going on at the "team leader" and FAI levels. Various teams are conniving ways to get more of their pilots higher in the launch line priority, or whatever they can possibly do to improve potential position in the air. Our team leader, Nicole, comes back from the morning Team Leader meeting with tales that would warm the heart of the most cold-blooded lawyer. I look at the whole "National" competition concept a bit sideways--I'm proud to represent Canada and do my best for the team, but I'd like to think this is a more of a global gathering of good pilots to fly at a high level. Working the system for team advantage is somewhere between laughable and retarded. If we don't get to fly soon this competition will end up in Manilla's courthouse, or turn into a contest to race team vehicles up and down the launch road. We've got the best driver, Dave, so game on.