Thursday: Task 4

123 km: After a small Zick Zack to Sumvitg and back the task went almost to Savognin and back to Sumvitg and Disentis.

Uff... The weather report was on 10-15kn at 3000m and 10kn at 4000m - but already the conditions at take off have been very strange. Often back-wind, strong gusts, really strange for a "normal" day.
In the air it has been visible: 15 kn at 3000 had to be taken real - almost 30 km/h. Straight north, it has been really rough during the first leg, until the pilots could cross to the south side of the valley.
But even there it has been difficult and windy. Not because of the valley winds, but the wind has been strong at 2500, 3000m, and the cloud base much lover than predicted (3600m). That made the return against the wind very hard.

But after speaking with pilots the explanation for these strange conditions is probably the subsidence (general sink of the airmass). Obviously it has been sinking anywhere...

Michi Küffer was leading many km ahead of the field - until sunk out near Safien. Michael Maurer sunk out as well. Both young Swiss are grounded. They will profit from the discard system.

Winner of the day is Markus Wicki, arriving in goal 10 minutes ahead of Nariyama Kiyoshi. First women Emanuelle Zufferey. Congratulation!

Fotos from Andy Busslinger (©www.andreasbusslinger.ch)