President's Page: October 2008

Category 1 championships in 2010
The good news is that we have received acceptable bids for organising some of these important events.
Category 2 competitions in the past year
In 2008 we have so far sanctioned more than 250 competitions in the FAI member countries.
The 2009 CIVL Plenary meeting
We are preparing for the 2009 Plenary meeting (already). The meeting will be held in Hall in Tirol in Austria in February.
The World Air Games 2009
The test events for all the different air sports disciplines have taken place and the organisers and FAI are now working on the organisation of the “real” WAG in 2009.
The FAI Sporting License database
The success of the sporting license database will depend on the NACs of the FAI member countries which will have to update the database with the details of the competition pilots.
The WXC
After more than a year of work to develop the new World XC Online contest the first trial version started on 1 October and will run through to 30 September 2009.

Category 1 championships in 2010
At the 2008 plenary meeting we did not receive bids for the majority of the 2010 championships. The good news is that we have since received good bids for organising some of these important events. On behalf of CIVL, the Bureau has awarded the organisation of the 2010 Paragliding XC European Championship to Paragliding Club Ikarus in Abtenau, Austria and the organisation of the 2010 HG & PG Aerobatic World Championships to the “Aerobatics Competition organisation team Acroaria” in Omegna, Italy.
Both teams are very experienced in organising international competitions, so I am very confident that they will organise successful championships in 2010.
For more detailed information see the [civl:node/1081|news story] and the [civl:competitions/calendars|competition calendar] on the CIVL site. We will keep you informed about the preparations of these championships.
I am communicating with possible organisers of the 2010 HG European Championship and the World HG class 2 & 5 and Women’s class 1 championships. We will make announcements as soon as we have reached agreement about these championships.

Category 2 competitions in the past year
In 2008 we have so far sanctioned more than 250 competitions in the FAI member countries. The results of those competitions have been input into the WPRS and they give a fairly accurate indication of the pilot and nation rankings in the HG & PG disciplines worldwide.
Two problems that we are often confronted with are:
• Some sanction application forms are sent too late to the CIVL coordinator. We want to make sure that competitions appear on the CIVL competition calendar at least one month before the start of the event, so that interested pilots have enough time to prepare once details are published in the competition calendar. Competitions for which the sanction application forms are sent to Paula too late will usually not be sanctioned.
• Competition organisers not checking the pilots’ FAI Sporting Licenses. The rule about the sporting licenses is simple: “In FAI sanctioned events a competitor must hold a valid FAI Sporting License”. Because only pilots that own a valid FAI Sporting License have a right to be ranked in the WPRS and because we also receive results of competitions in which pilots without valid Sporting Licenses have competed, Paula has much work “filtering” the pilots and the system gets polluted with incorrect information. The FAI has recently set up a sporting license database and the use of the database will be mandatory in 2009. The data input of the database will depend on the NACs and I think that the sporting license database will hopefully make life easier for the competition organisers and solve the problems that we have now.

The 2009 CIVL Plenary meeting
We are preparing for the 2009 Plenary meeting (already). The meeting will be held in Hall in Tirol in Austria in February.
In that meeting the organisation of the following 2011 championships will be awarded:
• The World HG Championship
• The World PG Championship
• The World Accuracy PG Championship
• European HG Class 2 & 5 and Women’s class 1 Championships
The CIVL delegates and the NACs of the FAI member countries have received the Bid Guidelines some time ago. (See [civl:documents/bid_guidelines|the CIVL website] for further information. FAI member countries that are interested in organising one of the above mentioned championships are requested to send in the bid information to the CIVL bureau before December 19th 2008. I hope to receive many bids for organising the 2011 championships.

In the two days before the plenary the Subcommittee and Working Group meetings will be held. The majority of the agenda items for the plenary will be discussed and agreed about in the SCs and WGs, so these meetings with the specialists in the different disciplines are very important.

The World Air Games 2009
The 2009 WAG will be held in the north of Italy in June 2009. The test events for all the different air sports disciplines have taken place and the organisers and FAI are now working on the organisation of the “real” WAG in 2009. Our “specialists”, Louise Joselyn and Dennis Pagen, have attended the test events and are positive and optimistic about the HG & PG events. I have seen some video coverage of the events and I am sure that the 2009 WAG will be able to show the public and the media some very attractive Hang Gliding and Paragliding. I am looking forward to visiting the WAG next year and hope that the media will be able give a good impression of the air sports in the WAG to the world.

The FAI Sporting License database
As already mentioned, the FAI has set up a central database for the FAI Sporting Licenses and from January 1st 2009 the use of the database will be mandatory. That will mean that every pilot that wishes to compete in a FAI/CIVL sanctioned competition will have to be registered in that database. The competition organisers when registering pilots, and the CIVL, when logging results in the WPRS, will be able to check for valid sporting licenses in that database.
The success of the sporting license database will depend on the NACs of the FAI member countries which will have to update the database with the details of the competition pilots.
During the recently held FAI General Conference I emphasized to the people that represent the NACs in the FAI how important it is to make sure that the pilots are put in the database. This will avoid problems with registrations for competing in CIVL sanctioned competitions. It is advisable to contact the organisation that issues the FAI Sporting Licenses in your country, that is usually the NAC, to make sure that your name can be found in the database.

The WXC
After more than a year of work to develop the new World XC Online contest Agust Gudmundsson has announced on the [civl:node/1085|CIVL website] and in a message to the CIVL delegates that the first trial version has started on 1 October and will run through to 30 September 2009.
The basic philosophy of the WXC is not to compete with already existing contests, but to interconnect all existing and “operational” online XC contests around the world to create a World XC online contest running alongside, allowing pilots to compare their flights across regions and compete internationally.
More information can be found at http://wxc.fai.org/

Flip Koetsier