World Championships at Monte Cucco, Italy

On Sunday the opening ceremony for the Hang Gliding World Championship at Monte Cucco will start the biggest comp of the year. About 160 pilots are there! At the moment, registration is on at the head quarter, and the sprogs are being measured in the gym at Villa Scirca.
The German Team is fast and strong this year, with Roland Wöhrle having finished 10th at the pre-worlds last year and 9th at Montegrappa, Gerd Dönhuber on 11th place at Montegrappa. Andre Djamarani can be as fast a racer as Christian Zehetmair, and Markus Ebenfeld is unbeatable when it comes to tricky, difficult endurance flights of more than 7 hours!
I will follow the flights and highlight some of the results anyway, as I know that Flavio Tebaldi is a great organizer and we will see some amazing flying over the next couple of weeks. Monte Cucco is where I won my last and current World title and I really like the flying in Umbria.
The fist competition task will start on Tuesday 19th.
You can also follow the competition on my friends blogs:
Jamie - she will twitter the most actual results and takes great photos!
Jonny Durand - the young Aussie might win this comp and still finds time to film in the air!
Matjaz Klemencic - young gun from Slovenia, posting great films and photos!
Øyvind Ellefsen - young Norwegian top pilot posting great aerial pics!
Rich Lovelace - cool British pilot with that notorious humour!
The only women competing this year are Natalia Petrova (she recovered very fast from her broken arm in April!), Julia Kucherenko and Zhenya Lariskaya - 3 of the 5 Russian pilots are women! Very impressive, these girls are superstrong and I keep my fingers crossed for them that they place well and enjoy the meet!