I have just returned from a meeting with the organisers of the Coupe Icare at St Hilaire, near Grenoble in France. As I mentioned before, they have scheduled Paragliding Accuracy as one of their special events this year. There will be official Accuracy demonstrations on Friday, Saturday and Sunday from 16.00 to 16.30, weather permitting.
We have the opportunity for 15 pilots (one launching every two minutes) to show the world Paragliding Accuracy over the three days. We need top pilots who can land on the pad (or very close) every time. There will be an announcer with a microphone telling the crowd who is coming to land, also their best competition results, WPRS ranking, national/international/World Cup championships and which year etc etc. We will have a scoreboard to mark up each pilot’s scores, with a winner per day and a winner over the three days (small prizes). There will (hopefully) be tv cameras and photographers. I will prepare some information to tell visiting pilots and the public about Paragliding Accuracy competitions and the growing discipline.
BUT I NEED MORE TOP PILOTS!!!! AND I NEED AN ELECTRONIC SCOREPAD!!!!
I have only a few names so far (Huub from Holland, Yoshiki from Japan, Brett Janaway from GB). We MUST have some pilots from Slovenia – the Champions! All pilots in the top 20 WPRS should think strongly about coming along – even if you cannot be there for all three days. Matjaz, Jaca, Dusan – there are many many Slovenian pilots in the top 20??? What about from Czech Republic: Kamil? Tomas? Bulgaria: Dimitar Ralev? Turkey: Funda? Macedonia: Kiro? Serbia: Branko? Uga? Latvia? Lithuania? And more from GB: Andy Webster? Nick Simmons? Andy Shaw?
Also, the LADIES – the very charming French organisers at launch and landing want to see more women participate. Violeta? Funda? Katerina? Marketa?
All registered participants will receive free entry to the event, free use of the exclusive Pilot transport between launch and landing, free lunch tickets, T-Shirt, and an invitation to a special Dinner on Saturday night. This includes JUDGES – I have said we will need about 4 or 5 Judges.
Participating pilots and Judges must register in advance, by 15 September. Please confirm to me as soon as possible that you are coming and I will send you the registration form and the rules.
It is a fantastic opportunity for us to show a very wide international audience, but particularly France, that Accuracy is an exciting and competitive sport.
For those of you who have never been, it is a fantastic event, with many different demonstrations (speed hang gliding, acro, wing suits, de-bagging, paramotors, kites etc) and the fancy dress competition, for which it is famous (Violeta has entered several years running now!).
More info at: www.coupe-icare.org
Please distribute this message to the top pilots in your country as I do not have email addresses for everyone.
Does anyone know if the electronic score pad can also be connected to a large display screen? If the demonstration works well this year, the organisers are already talking about holding a competition during the event next year. They are VERY interested, so we HAVE to show them a good demonstration. Also, remember that Paragliding Accuracy is one of the specially selected aviation disciplines in the World Air Games – which will take place in Turin in 2009. I am sure that some of the organisers of this event will also be at St Hilaire and will be taking notes!
Best Regards Louise
