You can watch the first task animation HERE or from the links at the top.

The prizegiving is always a high point of a competition. In Hakuba it was held in the community hall and well attended.

Here are our podium photos for this Hakuba, Japan event...

As always, we start with the ladies :-

2nd - Noriko Mizunuma, 1st Tomomi Masuko, 3rd Junghun Park

And then the open results :-

2nd - Kaoru Ogisawa, 1st - Lucas Bernardin, 3rd - Yashushi Kobayashi

And finally, the teams...

1st - Peter, Julien, Jack and Midori are the Ozone team

2nd - Konrad, Hannes & Maurice are the Aircross team

3rd - Lucas, Arnaud, Didier and Orlane are team Kortel.

Thats it from Hakuba - its been a tough week for weather but, in the end, we got what we needed. The Paragliding World Cup Association  would like to thank all the members of the local organisation for their help this week and wish you all well for the future.

Just before we sign off -here are a couple of extra pics from the prizegiving.

Next stop - China !

Text by Chris : Pictures by xm

The end of the competition is upon and the results are ready. Winning todays task with a time of 1 hour 43 mins 17 seconds is Konrad Gorg (Germany / Kontest Gleitschirmservice) 

Top woman today with a time of 2 hours 29 minutes 8 seconds is Joanna Di Grigoli (Venezuela / FordEicomCantvColumOakkley)

And our top team today is Aircross

This means that the overall winners of the Hakuba competition are :-

Open Champion - Lucas Bernadin (France)

Womens Champion - Tomomi Masuko (Japan / Aerotact)

Winning Team - Peter Gebhard, Julien Wirtz, Jack Brown and Midori Nakanome   -  
Ozone Team

The results are available from the links above.

Prizegiving begins at 17:00 here in Hakuba - the pictures will be posted here afterwards.

While we wait for the podium photos, here is Philippe's video from Mount Fuji yesterday

Text by Chris 

All pilots are now accounted for and, at this time, we have a reported number of 51 pilots in Goal - this awaits confirmation by the scoring system but its a good figure anyway...

Pilots are now arriving back at headquarters and the leader board is running...

Text by Chris

We have just received the first list of pilots from the goal field. At this time we have 42 pilots in goal and 20 still to report (probably still flying) !!

Text by Chris

The final race is on. With a fairly low cloudbase today the decision is a 49.5km elapsed time race - the window opened at 11:15 and the start closes two hours later.

It seems that the weather may have finally settled here in Hakuba. We have woken this morning to low, but broken, cloud and some sun on the ground.

First an apology - for those who were expecting the Live Leader Board this evening.... we had a problem in Mount Fuji which meant some of us were a bit late leaving

It is stll raining back in Hakuba but the World Cup organisation has moved. At 4:30 this morning everyone met up at headquarters and by 5:00 we were on the road. We arrived at Asagiri, at the base of Mount Fuji at 8:40 in bright sunshine, few clouds and light winds - it looks like we are going to have a good day.

The take-off is a purpose built scaffolding structure and directly faces Mount Fuji - the view is impressive. By 09:30 we had a task set and the briefing was taking place.

Todays task is a 63.9km Race to Goal with a clock start - there will be 4 available starts at 40, 50 ,60 and 70mins after window open - which is 10:10.

The map is below and there will be more info as soon as we have it...

Text by Chris