The 39th World Gliding Championships is now underway at Tabor Airfield Czechia with 115 pilots competing in three classes. Several past World Gliding Champions are testing their skills against young champions including Stefan Langer and Matthew Scutter for the top accolades in gliding.
The championships are being held from 7 - 21 June. The first two days were no fly days, leaving ten possible flying days to decide the next World Gliding Champions in 15m, Standard and Club Classes.
Racing Begins
The day promised strong conditions over the task area, but was impinged upon by smoke haze from wildfires drifting in from Canada. The smoke weakened conditions and changed Race 1 in all classes to a much trickier proposition.
Matthew Scutter showed his world championship credentials by winning 15m Class. He completed the 470 km racing task at 100 kph. The Dutch pair Peter Millenaar and Jeroen Verkuijl took the 2nd and 3rd places.
Club Class was won by the German dynamic duo of Uwe Wahlig and Stefan Langer. They crossed the line metres apart to take 1st and 2nd places. Uwe finished the 476 km task at 98.93 kph. Uwe and Stefan came 2nd and 3rd at WGC Narromine in 2023. Australian James Nugent took the World Championship title then flying on his home turf. James came 13th today, but is only 51 poits behind Uwe in the lead. There are many race days to come, and as always, it will be the most consistent pilots who stay at the top of the table. Consistency is something that can be counted on from the two Germans.
In Standard Class Jeroen Jennen from Belgium came 1st followed by Jakub Barszcz from Poland and German Max Lukas Maslak in 3rd, all flying LS8s. Jeroen finished the 478km course at 88.67 kph.
Club Class once again features duelling ASW20s and LS3s with a slew of each. The handicap for the ASW 20 is now 1.07 to 1.08 while the LS3s handicap is 1.06 to 1.07. It will be interesting to see whether the top two Germans can be bested by the ASW20s or not.
The Standard Class lineup includes 24 LS8s out of the 34 contestants, most of the rest being Discus 2s.
In 15m Class 15 out of the 35 gliders are JS3s. Matthew Scutter is flying one, and after the first race, is the pilot everyone else will be following. The last 15m WGC at Narromine in 2023 was won by Sebastian Kawa. Matthew was not on the Australian team for that contest. This WGC Matthew is flying at the top of his game, and Sebastian is not in the contest.
Full results will be at soaringspot.com/en_gb/39th-fai-world-gliding-championships-tabor-2025
Sean Young
