European Paragliding Accuracy: Serbia and Slovenia in Gold

The full number of twelve rounds was successfully completed this week at the 5th FAI European Paragliding Accuracy Championship on the Paluknys airfield in Lithuania with good flying weather for the last two competition days.

In a particularly close competition, the Serbia Team were the victors, followed by the Czech Republic with the United Kingdom in third place. The last round, where the pilots flew in reverse score order, produced numerous excellent scores with much vocal support from the on-lookers; the last few flights determined the final winners.

The overall individual competition winner was Mateus Sluga of Slovenia, with a total of just 31 centimetres just beating Goran Djurkovic (SRB) with 39cms into second place closely followed by Ivan Pavlov (SRB) with 43cms. The top twelve competitors all scored less than a metre for their total scores.

Tamara Kostic of Serbia was the ladies winner and Katie Lawrence (GBR) in second place, overtaking Marketa Tomaskova (CZE) in the very last round. Milica Marinkovic of Serbia also caught up to get exactly the same score as Marketa. As there was no fly‑off for the third position, they shared the bronze medal position.

The gold winning Serbian Team succeeded in just staying ahead of the Czech Republic Team in silver position with just 15 cm separating the two squads. The United Kingdom crew followed in the bronze medal position.

The Lithuania organisers and their hard-working administrative and technical staff team should be complimented for running a successful competition.

Photos: the winners