German Swoop Open 2010

The 8th German Swooping Open was held in the last week of June. Due to the World Championships in summer in Russia we were expecting less swoopers than the years before. Twenty seven men from ten different nations came to train and to put some color over the pond.

The weather forecast was just about too good. We could have been finished with the competition by friday noon but we had an idea of another format. We did one discipline per day, starting with a training jump every morning.

 

Day one was the day of distance. Since the ground in the course was rather rugged and the downwind was with us we had quite a few sore butts to look after in the evening. Wuzi as the big favorite made one big leap of 146 meters scoring 295 points in three rounds, before Tobi S. 263 and Maik S. 245 points.

 

The day of speed was rather slow due to a break of four hours I had scheduled to keep our heads out of the sun. And yes – that was too long. Again we started with a round of training which seemed helpful to most of the group. Erwin Baatenberg was going full speed this day scoring 297 points in three rounds. Wuzi had 276 and Tobi S. 275 points. With another great performance was Andrey Slyshankow from Russia doing 233 points and fouth place in speed.

Zone Accuracy was reserved for the last day. Unfortunately we had some quite funky up/crosswind situation. The round of training in the morning helped getting accustomed to flying full power towards the gates. Although creating a lot of energy only a few could make it to the scoring zones while Tobi and Wuzi at the top where fighting hard for the points in the center zone. When creating to most power Wuzi missed an entry gate and gave the first place to Tobi. On place three is Daniel Erikson from Norway with a score in every round.

Congratulations to the winners. A prize money of 750, 500 and 250 Euros was paid for the places on the podium.  Full results can be found here.

 

Reported by: Nina Engel