A Malaysian leg of PGAWC was this year held in Sabah region of Borneo island in a town called Ranau . Place is located a little bit over 100 km Eastern from Kota Kinabalu, at the bottom of beautiful, 4.095m high Mt. Kinabalu. The most of pilots actually continued Asian part of competitions, joined by pilots from Qatar, China and Chinese Taipeh.
Malaysian organizer already had some experiences with PGAWC but this time, they used a place where nothing can go wrong and had more luck with a weather, as well. Despite some rain drops, we completed max.number of rounds, all six, thanks to good organized transportation and dedicated launch marshals.
Landing site is not so easy as it seems from a take off but there is a lot of place for a safe landing. When the sun appeared through the clouds, pilots experienced a lot of lift on the bottom but this was not a case for Slovenian Rafael Kerin and Chinese Guang Sheng, who were on the top from a very beginning.
A last -sixth round began in a opposite ranking order and among top ten there were only some slight changes of positions. Pre-last flight was for Guang Sheng and he scored 2cms, while last one was for Rafael, who once again confirmed his best position with a 0cm.
In a female competition, top four positions were kept by Indonesian pilots, where Rosnalia Dian, Sirin Milawati and Cherry Bonaria were the strongest.
In team competition, Yagababa won with incredible 76cm after all six rounds, with only 4 cms for a last round. They were followed by China 1 and Best 4 Nike.
Opening ceremony was held at the landing site, accompanied by a Minister of turism, while a closing ceremony with a dinner and some tourist presentations, not to mentione some local music and dancing, was organized at beautiful Mount Kinabalu Heritage resort hotel.
This competition will be also remembered by a big price money for individuals and teams, not to mentione a great hospitality and good organization and of course, an organized tour to Mt. Kinabalu the very next day.
More pictures in fotagallery here .
