Cross Country's daily roundup of the Superfinal 2013… No way: the entire competition has tumbled through the looking glass:
Congratulations to RUSSELL OGDEN (GB) who won the fifth task at the Paragliding World Cup Superfinal in Brazil yesterday, Tuesday 21 January.
He flew a great flight and was the only one to get to goal in the 60km task, scoring 998 points. He was flying an Ozone Enzo 2.
His win, however, was overshadowed by an almighty row that has broken out in Governador Valadares over whether or not the Ozone Enzo 2 is in fact certified to fly in the competition.
Under the rules of the competition all wings must be certified. The new Ozone Enzo 2 is certified EN D.
To prevent cheating the organisers of the Superfinal measure different elements of the wings belonging to pilots who win the tasks. This is to check for 'tweaks' that might make the glider go faster and give an unfair advantage.
In a result that sent shockwaves through the comp scene, upon measuring the trailing edge of the Enzo 2s belonging to task winners Stefan Wyss, Yassen Savov and Pepe Malecki, organisers found they were all out by at least 200mm.
The trailing edge is measured from the centre of the trailing edge (the back of the wing) around the curve of the glider to the wingtip. It is reportedly done with a highly accurate laser measuring tool.
Under the rules, a certified Ozone Enzo 2 must measure 6612mm, give or take a few mm.
However, two of the gliders measured 6812mm and one glider, Pepe Malecki's, measured 6819mm – at least 200mm, or 20cm, out each side.
It means the overall trailing edge of the Enzo2 is 40cm – over a foot – longer than it should be.
This would, theorists say, make the gliders faster.
After a couple of non-flying rainy days in Brazil the news spread through the comp pilots like wildfire.
Pilots, then the internet forums and blogs, lit up with explosive and potentially libellous claims. Were the pilots cheating? Had Ozone cheated by selling 'tweaked' gliders to its best pilots in a bid to win the competition? Had there been a mistake in the form filling? What had gone wrong?
Most importantly, were the gliders 'legal'?
It quickly became clear that the problem was not isolated to the gliders of the winning pilots. Instead it seems many more Enzo 2s in the competition have the same issue – trailing edges that bang the glider right out of certification.
With at least 30 Enzo 2s listed in the competition – and many of the gliders wrongly listed in the comp as first generation Enzos in fact Enzo 2s – dozens of pilots were suddenly faced with the shock of finding out that their gliders – and results – might not in fact be valid.
Could the winner of the Superfinal – which ends on 25 January – be truly declared the real winner, if they were flying an Enzo 2?
For pilots who wanted satisfactory answers there were none. Instead, a fudged solution was proposed: the competition will continue as normal while investigations are carried out into the wing by Ozone and the specialist paragliding testing centre Air Turquoise in Switzerland.
Under the certification regulations the testing centre keeps the original glider – Ozone will be measuring it as soon as possible.
If those results aren't conclusive, and the issue isn't settled before the end of the comp, then ALL the winning gliders from ALL the manufacturers will be taken to Switzerland where they will be subject to rigorous testing to ensure they are certified gliders.
Not until the gliders are cleared will the true winner of the Superfinal be truly known.
Suddenly PWC pilots in Brazil are facing the prospect of a long wait to find out who the winners will be. Cold politics, not crushed-ice caiparinhas, could be the order of the day at the end-of-comp party.
The events are unprecedented in Paragliding World Cup competition history and have plunged what was a great competition featuring fantastic pilots showcasing their amazing skills into farce.
Meanwhile, across the Atlantic in Europe Ozone have pulled out all the stops to tackle the issue fast.
As one comp pilot blogger started an online poll asking "Did Ozone cheat?" head honchos at Ozone were already considering a different option: had their normally strict manufacturing process somehow gone wrong? Was it a case that ALL Enzo 2s rolling off the production line were in fact being produced incorrectly. Were any of the 100+ Enzo 2s sold around the world actually certified?
Certainly, when we rang the Ozone head office yesterday, the answer was clear: "No way is this an issue of cheating or supplying out-of-certification gliders on purpose, absolutely not."
The message was Ozone were working on getting to the bottom of the issue, and working on it fast.
That, at least, is a relief because the idea that a manufacturer would bend the rules to their own commercial ends in such a thin-lipped way would be anathema to all pilots in the sport – and would almost certainly damage the manufacturer's reputation beyond repair.
However, it does raise the possibility of an unprecedented manufacturing cock-up.
Alternatively, as one pilot suggested on the red-hot Paragliding Forum thread, it could simply be a case of a misplaced typo.
Could someone have mistaken an '8' for a '6' when transcribing hand-written notes onto a typed form early on in the process of certification? Turning the true measurement of 6812mm into 6612mm.
That indeed would be a simple answer, and could yet still prove true.
If it is does, then farce and politics will quickly be forgotten.
However, if it doesn't, then this issue could rumble on for months.
Against all this high drama stands another side issue: there is no official need to measure the trailing edge of the gliders in the competition anyway. Although the rules cover line-length measuring, there are reportedly no rules about measuring the length of the trailing edge.
Indeed, the idea of measuring the trailing edge almost seems to have been conjured up over several bored non-flying days in the middle of the comp.
High level comps are notorious for throwing up big arguments over rules – they usually disappear as soon as pilots start flying again.
However, this one seems unprecedented in its potential impact.
Three simple measurements have seen the rules over competition glider design thrown into sharp relief as almost ungovernable; potentially libellous allegations of cheating and mud thrown at Ozone and its top pilots; a once fine competition seemingly reduced to an unwinable laughing stock; and the Paragliding World Cup Association cast as impotent bystanders in their own Superfinal.
What's the solution?
Ozone are thought to be working towards the simplest possible end. If it is found that a manufacturing error is in fact responsible – and not simply a mistake in paperwork that is easily resolved – then the answer will be to certify one of the production gliders. That is, a glider with the longer trailing edge.
At a stroke that would at least make all the gliders certified and should, split-hairs aside, allow a winner of the Superfinal to be declared fair and square.
Meanwhile, the forecast is getting better for Governador Valadares and pilots will be itching to fly again and get back into the booming skies of the early tasks.
While for some the issue will have been an unwelcome distraction, for others it will simply be all part of the show. A great debate in the middle of some great flying.
The end result of an incredible day at the Superfinal then is that the show goes on. The pilots will fly – the fallout, and maybe even the winners, will come later.
STEFAN WYSS still leads, flying an Ozone Enzo 2.
PHOTO: The guilty results showing the measurements of the trailing edge of the Enzo 2 and other gliders. Photo by Guy Anderson,
www.britishteampara.blogspot.co.uk, with apologies to Perez Hilton.
RESULTS
www.pwca.org/results/results/See more PHOTOS at the Superfinal Facebook page:www.facebook.com/pwc2013
Watch VIDEOS from the Superfinal at PWCA TV:www.vimeo.com/channels/paraglidingworldcup
