17th FAI World Hang Gliding Championships
| Tweets from Jamie
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The Brits Blog
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| Worlds Official Blog
Italy takes the Gold World Championship Winners! Friday 3 July: Task 8: 154km Wives and girlfriends Thursday 2 July: Task 7: 113km: Stopped Photos from Wed 1 July World Championships photo competition Spaghetti night at Chateauneuf de Chabre Wednesday 1 July: Task 6: 89.4km: Cancelled Tattoos on launch: 2 Phil Lardner Tuesday 30 June: Task 5: 130km: Stopped Video: Task 3 winner Christian Ciech Video: Meet Team Guatemala Monday 29 June: Task 4 cancelled Video: How not to land a hang glider part 2 Sunday 28 June: Task 3: 166km Video: Manfred Ruhmer on winning Task 2 Video: Here's........ Jonny Saturday 27 June: Too windy: no fly Friday Night Thriller: Fête de la Saint-Jean Pilot photos Friday 26 June: cancelled Thursday 25 June: Task 2: 125 km |
Thats Irish :-)
Retrospective1247094780|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover When I first started writing the Langer Report I had no idea it would turn out to be quite so popular - It was really just a piss-take on Ireland's doomed efforts in the Worlds and an excuse to have a little fun at everyone else's expense! But strange things have happened... if Manfred can be knocked off his perch then perhaps an Irish world champion isn't quite as mad as it sounds! Anyway, somehow news of the blog leaked out and The Langer Report exploded onto the world stage like a teen
Final round-up of photos1247090700|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover I'm finally sobering up after one hell of a party... and reaching the bottom of the barrel for the photos and stories, so in no particular order...Monster Paiella at RibiersAttn: WADA - Flip, acid house party animal!Zippy gets a little pre-launch manipulation from ScottLate night visitorCarbon KatanaFashion victim!Phil & Cameron strike up an impromptu didgeridoo sessionon a hammock stand in the Mison restaurant!Lower... lower... harder... harder!Monica: Why Not? ...because Scott would probab
Looking up Katrin's highway to heaven!1247090040|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover The new ramp on the high south launch of the Chabre was built by volunteers especially for the 2009 Worlds, and was made possible by a generous donation from the Colombians - Thanks guys!
Kiwis & Parrots1247088960|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover While the rest of us were busy pulling birds at the Worlds, the Kiwi team were busy taking the bird in the mouth! I know I'm lazy when it comes to flossing, but this takes the biscuit!Meanwhile, nocturnal wildlife from the Guatemalan jungles was also spotted larking around the Laragne undergrowth!Kurt Meyer in tribal Guatemalan head-dress!
Training, Tactics & Dicipline1246969260|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover As Irish team leader I took my job reaaaaaaly seriously (as if you hadn't guessed already!) After deploying Manfred's sneaky tactic of flying really badly in the first task (and then blowing away the field in the second) I prepared Team Langer to storm the leader board by covering all the bases. First to go was Shaun's excessive hair do - with that shaved off, he didn't need to use a helmet as his bullet head would be much more streamlined than some poxy carbon-fibre lid. I then decid
Ireland Storms the Leader Board!1246968900|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover Ok, so the Worlds have been over for a few days and I normally leave these trivial matters to my junior editors (like Davis!) but perusing the daily comp results for casualties I see that top Irish pilot Geoff McMahon succeded in out flying the Hungarian world champion, Attila Bertok... or at least staying up a little longer while Attila went down in flames, coring the sink like a real pro! (Attila managed just 23.8km to Geoff's 39.9km) Way to go Geoff!!Geoff magnanimously reveals some se
The Irish School of Journalism1246964100|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover This has nothing to do with the 2009 HG Worlds but I nearly pissed myself laughing when I received this photo today! Thank God for human error - it really keeps us sane in a mad world! Perhaps now, readers can get an idea of where I learned my journalistic skills!!This is the front page of a *real* newspaper in the west of Ireland!3rd July 2009.
1246926720|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover Gerolf and the DHV Dispite Gerolf's ongoing beef with the DHV for being a pointless bunch of wasters with outdated and useless testing procedures who wouldn't know what to do with a sprog unless it came out of a sex toy catalogue... it appears that Gerolf is sporting not only a snazzy pair of stretch leggings, but also a DHV approved ass! Gerolf Heinrics' DHV approved ass!More chick on chick action! Evgenya and Julia - I love it when they let me watch!! Jonny be Good! It's a w
1246922520|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover Chick on chick action The wild animal antics were not confined to just the pilots at this year's Laragne Worlds. Jeff O'Brien's world travelled green rubber duckie, Wasabi, was introduced to Phil Lardner's very own Nurse Annecy Spank at an evening soiree hosted by the Americans and Aussies. Wasabi was captured on camera giving Spank the ride of he life... and then some! Wasabi gives Spank the ride of her life! Nurse Spank injects her secret love potion... ...and Wasabi gets his
1246636860|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover Feu de la St. Jean - Bonfire night Photos are slowly reaching me of the antics at the recent Feu de la St. Jean bonfire party the other night. As you can see, all discipline and decorum was duly tossed onto the fire along with the wood and a few paragliders for good measure! Horny devil, Swiss Nick (Roberto Nichele) tongues Comp Director Heather Mull - if he was hoping for a little punishment, he wasn't disappointed... the other photos are too frightening to be published! Oh Julia,
1246402140|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover Gerolf on VG At the Mandatory Pilot's Safety Briefing on day one, we were all treated to a riviting lecture on sprog adjustment and the use of VG when flying on glide by Gerolf Heinrichs. Gerolf wanted to persuade us all that flying with full VG, bar to the bollox, was not a safe thing to do when racing, and that really we should never use more than about 3/4 or at most 4/5 VG when on speed glide. That way we'd all arrive at goal safely... behind Gerolf! I suppose this must have seemed
1246315200|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover Engineers & Oil Rags... Storm clouds were gathering at the Worlds HQ this evening as the Irish team departed after having the brains sucked out of their GPSs at the end of Task #2. In casual innocence I remarked to Mark (chief tech-weenie in charge of GPSs and scoring) that the office was a haven of ordered industry and efficiency, and complimented them on doing such a good job. "Oh well," he replies, "it's us engineers over this side of the room who do all the real work," referring to hims
25th July - Camping Monteglin - Laragne1246103880|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover Team Japan Meet Masahiro Kitano, Hiroshi Suzuki, Kazuyuki Hirabayashi, Norihisa Wada and Koji Daimon (Team Japan) who are all flying well and busy putting a different slant on the Worlds! Good luck lads (googleTranslate to Japanese) Team GuatemalaJose Herrarte (Loco) of Team Guatemala wheezed his way, puffing and panting under the weight of his glider all the way to the far end of the high south take-off at the Charbe today. When he stopped beside me for a breather and to sweat quietly
Comp Day #2 - Close... but no cigar!1245954840|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover Well, we went up to the Chabre's lower north take-off this morning and were greeted with a not entirely unexpected howling gail at the top. What did surprise us was just how cold the wind was, which caught many pilots and batten bunnies out in their skimpy shorts and pleasingly tight T-shtirs. This blog doesn't record the effect the cold wind had on Meet Director Heather Mull's nipples, but we imagine that they were no hardship to gaze upon! If anyone has any photos then do please let me h
Langer? What's a langer?1245793140|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover Well, it's a local Irish expression. You'll have to go here for a full definition!
1245779400|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover 21:38 - 22nd June - It Sucks when it Blows Well, as forecast the Mistral is still blowing hard today but is forecast to drop off over night, and pilots have been put on notice to prepare for a southerly task tomorrow (Tuesday.) With no flying so far and little in the way of real news to report, I've had to work doubly hard to scrape together enough scuttlebutt to keep you up to date on the rumour mill. But in the best traditions of journalism, when you can't confirm facts, fiction can do
1245669000|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover Sunday 21st June - 23:29 - My skull hurts. Yours would hurt too if you'd been drinking the same quantities on booze we have been consuming... mostly courtesy of Le Brasser O'Neill. Good stuff... just too much of it! So, what happened today? Being a non-starter for flying (still blowing like a $50 hooker) and with no pressing engagements to fulfil, we took a lazy morning, crawling out of bed at a leisurly 9am for a little brekkie alfresco. Plans for our approach to the competition were d
1245585960|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover Saturday 20th - The caravan was rocking hard last night... but that was purely due to the Mistral wind that was howling all night! It's still blowing hard this morning and it looks like there won't be any flying today... and possibly for the next few days. This means that there won't be any practice day to sort out GPS and other issues before the first task, so fingers crossed on that score. Shaun has been getting in some good flights here recently and Geoff has managed to bag three flight
Booming skies, dodgy transport and Dutch Girls1245583380|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover Friday 19th - 18:00 Marseille MP2 - Successful escaped the clutches of Ruinair's execrable passenger and baggage handling 'services' and was shocked to find that the limousine that was booked for me by my fellow team mates had failed to turn up. Transport finally arrived to pick me up in the form of Shaun in his ancient, temperamental (but apparently well loved) Landrover Defender that looks like it hadn't quite survived WW2. Predictably the heavens opened just as he pulled up in front of
Party Time!1245457680|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover WooHoo! Swarming bees, empty bank accounts and aged rellies dropping dead inconveniently close to my departure notwithstanding... I'm in the air and headin' south to Laragne for some serious fun and games at the 2009 Hang Gliding World Championships at last!Although flying with Ireland's lamest excuse for an airline, suffering Ruinair's torture flight to Marseille has got it's benefits. I find myself pleasingly wedged into the seat next to a pneumatically enhanced vision of sexiness in the form
Meet the Irish HG Worlds Team1245091800|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover The Irish Hang Gliding & Paragliding Association are proud to sponsor Geoff McMahon and Shaun O'Neill in the 2009 Hang Gliding World Championships in Laragne this summer. It would have been even prouder to be able to sponsor a larger team (as it did in the 2008 Pre-Worlds) but the other three pilots basically turned out to be pretty crap and we weren't going to waste any more money on them after they eliminated themselves from the last year's pre-Worlds comp in a variety of spectacular accid
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