The 2009 Paragliding World Cup - Event 5 in Croatia is under way.

Last night was the registration and opening ceremony which all went very well. We had entertainment in the form of local Istrian Klappa singing and some late evening dancing. There was food for all and we were treated to samples of local produce (truffles mainly) - there will be pictures along later but its been really busy today and we have not had time to upload them yet.

Today got off to a good start and the task has been set as a 56.1km Race to Goal

The map is below but this report is quite late (we had a few technical problems with the local mobile system which has taken up some of the afternoon) and, at the time of writing, we already have 7 pilots in goal - in order, these are 8 - Yassen Savov, 11 - Stefan Wyss, 13 - Aljaz Valic, 27 - Primoz Podobnik, 79 - Rafal Luckos, 35 - Maxime Bellemin and 211 - Nicolas Rieusset.

As usual the task map and the status of pilots as they land and report in is available on www.fastretrieve.com/mapping. There is also a new feature which we have been testing today and will continue to develop. As the pilots return to base and do their download, there is a display screen at www.fastretrieve.com/download which will show you the instant position of each pilot relative to those who have downloaded already. REMEMBER - this is before any scoring has been applied and does not take account of leadout points or arrival points so the positions can still change - but its quite interesting to watch. This screen will be changing during the week as we work on improving the quantity of pilots shown on the same screen etc...

Day 1 - Task Map