A 240 km task was set, starting a little earlier than the previous days (1:50 PM). The day was beautiful with cumi's and associated strong lift everywhere. Cirrus caused some shading for a 20 km stretch near the second turnpoint, but other than that you couldn't have asked for more. This was the Australian weather we came for! It finally happened :-)
Unlike yesterday, there was plenty of time for launching today. I had time to reach and optimal starting point and there was some true racing going on for the first 140 km. 80 - 90 km/h glides between 4 - 5 m/s thermals. It felt good to be racing with the leaders, haven't done enough of that this championship.
I lost some time at the edge of the cirrus band, where things got slower and I missed a thermal that seemed to shoot Christian Ciech into the sky. Than I took a wrong course line under a dying cloud, but saw Primoz or Paris again at the 3rd turnpoint. They made it in and I should have as well, but I feared the day was dying and wasn't patient enough. I landed at 6 PM and saw gliders flying over my head for the next hour. 213 km out of 240 is not bad, but it is only good enough for 51st place. Such is the level at this World Championship.
17 made goal, but most remarkably, not Manfred, missing goal by 5 km. This significantly reduces his lead over Alex Ploner, now down to 15 points. The winner scores close to 1000 points a day, so the battle for victory is extremely tight between these two. It's going to happen today!
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