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| 2003-08-10 |
| The last day of the Championships |
 We knew that this day would finally come and it came indeed.
The Closing Ceremony was to be held at 10.30 outside the airfield, in a sporting hall in the centre of Leszno. There were many cars heading to the centre. Although everybody was strongly advised not to come with the trailers we could spot one trailers parked outside the hall.
The Closing Ceremony was a moment of triumph for those who were to be awarded. Let me list the awarded in the order of the ceremony.
Open Class: the World Champion – Holger Karow from Germany, the 2nd place – Janusz Centka from Poland and the 3rd place – Gerard Lherm from France (like always with his sausage dog).
Standard Class: the World Champion – Andrew Davis from Great Britain, the 2nd place – Olivier Darroze and the 3rd place – Laurent Aboulin, both from France. Andy Davis got on the podium with his wife – Pamela. It was a very moving moment for them both and the spectators as well.
15M Class: the World Champion – John Coutts from New Zealand, the 2nd place – Andreas Allenspach from Switzerland and the 3rd place Gyorgy Gulyas from Hungary.
18M Class: the World Champion – Wolfgang Janowitsch from Austria, the 2n d place – Stephen Jones and the 3rd place – Philip Jones, both from Great Britain.
The medallists were given cups and the World Champions the floating FAI Challenge Cups.
The four World Champions were awarded the Helli Lasch Challenge handed by the South Africa Team Captain – Carol Clifford. This is a very unique prize in gliding – 10 days stay for the Champions with their partners in South Africa in March 2005 (see more in the Newsletter).
Karl Striedeck sponsored a set of glider covers for the 15M Class Champion.
Competitors placed on the 4th-10th position in each class got diplomas.
The World Soaring Cup went back to New Zealand. The Team Captains represented their countries on the podium: the 1st place – New Zealand, Sue Wild, 2nd place – France, Roland Stuck with a former World Champion Jean-Marc Caillard, presently the French team coach, and the 3rd place – Germany, Rainer Wienzek.
The Robert Kronfeld Challenge Cup was awarded to Laurens Goudriaan from South Africa, Open Class, for the flight of 725,6 km on 06.08.2003. This prize is awarded to a pilot covering the longest distance. In this case it was given to the pilot achieving the greatest distance first.
The oldest competitor – 66-year-old Karl Striedieck from USA, 15M and the youngest – 22-year-old Johan Stormats from Sweden, Std were given special cups as well.
During the ceremony among many other speeches we could hear the President of the Jury Tapio Savolainen and The IGC President Tor Johannessen. The Ceremony finished with handing the FAI flag to the Organizers of the next World Championships Uppsala, Sweden in 2006.
When the ceremony finished it was the final time to say goodbye and come back home. The airfield started to get deserted soon. After 2 pm it was almost empty and unbelievable that just 24 hours ago it was a busy place with couple of houndeds people constituting our Leszno gliding family. We realised the it was realy over when we saw 6 Turbo-Cmelaks flying back to Hungary. I took last photos at about 5 pm and went back to the competition office to finish my packing trying not to think how sad I felt.
I spent over 3 weeks in Leszno helping with the organizing, getting news & photos for the web page and of course sitting in front of the computer to share with you the atmosphere we had here and I’m going to miss this and the people who were here very much. I already do.
Ewa Hajek
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