Opening Ceremony
Evening 3rd July 2018
19.30 was the scheduled time for the Opening Ceremony to commence - preceeded by the Technical Meeting. Attended by all the competitors this had a delayed start, due to problems earlier in the day and late final load. The meeting was conducted by Marylou Laughlin, Chief Judge and Bjӧrn Korth, Meet Director. Questions were asked and answered and finally, with 15 minutes before the need to assemble ready to march to the 'arena', the Start Lists were organised - taking a lot of movement and organisation of people but we made it out of the meeting tent and assembled in time to march behind our country flags into the arena.
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The competitors then gathered outside the dining tent (meeting place) beneath the impressive range of national flags - with their name banners and flags they prepared to march in front of the stands by the pond and big screen.
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Once everyone was in the arena the FAI Anthem was played as the large screen showed the flag being raised. This was followed by speeches of welcome, first from Waldemar Wysocki, Foreman of Trzebnia District, followed by Frits Brink, FAI President; Aleksander Godzilo-Godlenski, CEO of the aeroclub Wroclawski Wroclovesky Club and then our Organiser the Director of Wroclevesky Club, Marek Jóźwicki who spoke about the Polish history being made today as this was the first time a World Championships in Canopy Piloting had been held in Poland, and for the Canopy Piloting Freestyle event, the first time that had even been held anywhere. It gave us all the opportunity to exchange values. The final speech at this time came from Jakub Bronowicki the Mayor of Wiscnia Mala, the town where the airfield is located. He said how proud he was to be able to welcome such a prestige event, particularly as they had been luckily enough to be picked last year for the World Games. To see so many international athletes here in this part of Poland and for the opportunity this presented for his town was a huge honour.
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| Frits Brink, President FAI | Marek Jozwicki, Director Wrocloveski Flying |
At this point our Master of Ceremonies (in English) Regan Tetlow arrived having been stuck in the traffic of spectators trying to make their way here to watch the show. He, like they had abandoned his car to finish the journey on foot. After some banter with the Polish presenter he had met last year at the World Games, and with the crowd over the amazing traffic the air show commenced. We were treated to a truly amazing and daring-do show by the top Polish aerobatic team "Żelazny" with lead pilots Piotu Habenlend and Wojnech Krupa, following the formal Opening of the 7th FAI World Canopy Piloting Championships and the1st FAI World Canopy Piloting Freestyle Championships. Once the display was over we had a small speech from one of the sponsors of the event - Madam Iwona Krawczyk, the Vice-Marshall of Lower Silesian. Marek also introduced the other sponsor (not present) who is the Under secretary for Sport Minister.
It was then a question of how quickly you could get away from the airfield with the huge level of traffic leaving. Everyone was pleased with the incredible turn out and the fact that the local population have embraced the airfield and enjoy its activites - even though Marek apologised for the increased noise over the next few days of competition. The interest this has all generated in the Wroclovesky Aeroclub is confirmed by the number of followers (600,000) for their Facebook page - a high proportion are Polish and local.
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| Marek Jozwicki : Aleksander Godzilo-Godlenski : Waldemar Wysocki : Frits Brink : Madam Iwona Krawczyk : Jakub Bronowicki |
