Winners in 15 m, 18 m. and open class.
CONGRATULATIONS!!!!!!

13.00 ; greetings from San Antonio!
Not one drop of rain in weeks in Uvalde and last night it was RAINING, with heavy gusts of wind and thunder and lightning. This morning going to the closing ceremony it still rained, but when it started it just got dry;  I had to leave then with a bit of a teary face. Farewells are never easy certainly not when you know this was the last writing job at location.
The final party was great [ thank you Kerry] and relaxed as it should be. I left early, hope they did not get wet as it was partly outside.

But back to yesterday first; What a splendid last day it was . The 2 toppers in open and 15 m. class showed why they were on the top. Sebastian Kawa raced in 15 m. over 369,3 km.with 149 km./h. [2.15 set time] in the Daina 2, and confirmed he deserves the GOLD!
In the evening at the party I congratulated him and normally I always find him a bit shy, now he was one big smile and…his father had an even bigger smile ….if at all possible.Congratulations to Sebastion a true CHAMPION.
Straight behind him with 148.3 km. team mate Tomasz Rubaj. Ed Jonhston was a good 3d for the day.
Overall Sebastian was on spot 1 with 11.062 points.
Matthias Sturm [ASW 27] is a great runner up with 10.628 points. When I congratulated him and mentioned that maybe next time it is his turn again [he won in Rieti the gold], he said that he still first had to qualify himself in the German Team.Hope he does… as he is an ace-pilot.
On spot 3 a very young and a very promising Czech pilot, Radek Krejcirik [Ventus 2AX] what a joy to see him on spot 3 with 10.526 points.
Good spots as well on 5-6-7-8-9 and 10; Steven Raimond from the Netherlands, Michael Rass from Austria, Ed Johnston from the UK , Tomasz Rubaj from Poland, Christophe Ruch from France, David Bauder from Germany another young and talented pilot and last but not least in the top 10 , Mark Leeuwenburg from the Netherlands. Peter Hartmann was on 3 ,when he was involved in the accident and he ended on spot  11 now.

Open class had as mentioned a day winner on the last day who was on spot ONE “OVERALL ” from day 1 onwards; Laurent Aboulin flying the new Schempp-Hirth glider the Quintus M.
What about that, can’t remember to have seen that before. Also on the last day he beat the number 2 overall Michael Sommer [EB 29] flying the 344 km. with a speed of 146.6 km  against 348 km. with 143.2 km./h. Congratulations to Laurent with 12.084 points. Also for Michael Sommer who just missed out on another consecutive win.[11.977]
 On spot 3 another new open class glider the JS 1-C[21m] flown by Oscar Goudriaan who really had a good endspurt.[11.835] It was an interesting race in open class with all those new “toys”. On spot 4 Tassilo Bode from Germany in a Quintus M. On 5 -6 -7 -8- 9 and 10;Pete Harvey from the UK in the Antares 23 , another good new glider in this class, Bruce Taylor from Australia in the JS1-C 21m.,Dick Butler in the very special new experimental glider with the 28 m. span, Francois Jeremiasse in the Quintus M from the Netherlands , Laurens Goudriaan in the JS1-C 21m. from SA and Ron Tabery from the USA in the ASW22BLE.

In 18 m. class the 2 Polish pilots dominated in the overall scores, while the 2 UK pilots tried to get grip on them. The Canadian pilots Jerzy and David won the last day , a pity they came a bit late on full steam.
 Zbigniew Nieradka prolonged his title in 18 m. and gained a total of 12.170 points. He was followed by his team mate Lucasz Wojcik with 11.840 ,while Mike Young from the UK, who occupied spot 1 on several earlier days went home with the bronze; 11.774! All 3 flew ASG 29!
On spot 4 to 10; Russell Cheetham from the UK in the JS 1 b, Michael Streit from Germany in ASG 29 another German talent, Uys Jonker and Ronald Termaat both in JS 1 B, and 3 more ASG 29 pilots Jerzy Szemplinski from Canada, Dimitry Timoshenko from Russia and Tom Claffey from Australia.

So from 9 pilots on the podium 3 were Polish!!!!!, 2 German, 1 from France, 1 from South Africa, 1 from the UK. and 1 from Czech Rep.Never before we saw such an high amount of points as here in Uvalde a new record. The TEAM CUP went …..no surprise to POLAND!!! Well done! 

The pilots flew up and down to the moon, that many kilometers. The operational part of this WGC was just perfect. So were the tuggies and Dan and Walt the meteo men, as well as the scorers!!! Thank you for ALL the time Ken the CD and his deputy John, put into this WGC.
A huge THANK YOU to ALL volunteers. And what great and lovely people live in Uvalde, I got to know a lot and just “love” them.
Safe travelling to all your parts of the world and “till we meet again”.

It was a great pleasure to be part of team SOARINGCAFE [ I did not know Bill and Rand personelly]  and the response we got as soaringcafe was overwhelming. I have to say thank you to Bill [and Carol] and Rand for “having me here in Uvalde”. Words cannot express my gratitude.
It was MY pleasure to inform you the best way I could.
 On behalf of Bill and Rand and me,
THANK YOU for reading with so many and for your kind comments!!!!

Ritz
www.soaringcafe.com
bill@soaringcafe.com
rand@soaringcafe.com
www.soaring.eu
www.glidinginternational.com
ritzdeluy@hotmail.com

Rand has made several pictures today and yesterday evening so stay tuned when you like to see them. Will come back on this great WGC in other blogs in the future.Start a bit of a holiday now here in San Antonio. Also Andeea [sorry could not find you to say goodbye] made pictures, which will be published asap.

By the way the September issue from Gliding International has the full story about this WGC with those great pictures from Maria…. Enjoy!