by Ian Kaynes Chairman, CIAM FF Subcommittee March 1992

The year of 1991 saw continued great interest and participation in the Free Flight World Cup. Class F1B was won by Alexander Andrjukov, the 1990 winner of the title, the other events went to new victors. Diploma and also, in classes F1A, F1B and F1C, trophies to be held for one year, will be presented at the CIAM Plenary meeting in March 1992 in Paris.

There were more competitors in F1A, F1B and F1C in 1991 compared to 1990, despite two competitions not being flown. These two were the Scandinavian Open, which suffered from high winds for the entire weekend, and the Soko Cup in Yugoslavia, not held because of the conditions of unrest in that country. It was also notable that competitors flew in more events, up to the seven competitions flown by Jan Ochman. In class F1E, slope soaring gliders, it would appear that there was one fewer competitor. However, this reflects that there were more people who scored points in multiple events - thus reducing the total number of separate individuals who could receive the available points from the top 14 places in each event - and so this shows a greater participation in the World Cup series of competitions.

There was one protest under the World Cup this year. This was from a competitor who had been disqualified during the event at Cambrai. The Jury at the event should have been able to handle the problem, but since they had not considered it a World Cup Jury of three members of the FF Subcommittee considered the matter by correspondence. This was a laborious process and resulted in proposals to the 1992 for modifying the World Cup protest system. The competitor withdrew his protest just before the verdict had been finalised.