10 Jul 2022

TWG2022: Day 1 overview of air sports competitions

On Saturday 9 July at The World Games 2022, round 1 of the canopy piloting competition took place although the drone racing qualifications were unfortunately interrupted due to rain.

There are 34 athletes competing in the canopy piloting, representing 16 countries: Australia, Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, New Zealand, Poland, Slovakia, Spain, South Africa, Sweden, United Arab Emirates, USA and Ukraine.

In drone racing, 31 pilots are participating, from 20 countries: Belgium, China, Czech Republic, Finland, France, Germany, Hong Kong, China, Hungary, Italy, Japan, Korea, Latvia, Lithuania, North Macedonia, Poland, Spain, Sweden, Thailand, Chinese Taipei and USA.

Canopy Piloting

Round 1 of the Canopy Piloting saw the four tasks of accuracy, distance, freestyle and speed successfully completed, with USA and France occupying the first 5 places in the leaderboard so far. Travis Mills (USA) didn’t come first in any of the rounds but through consistency gained the top spot, followed by Cedric Veiga Rios (FRA) then Nicholas Batsch (USA) whose names were both featured in the highest ranking in the individual tasks. Batsch – the winner of the canopy piloting in The World Games 2017 - placed 22nd in the speed round with what he called on an Instagram post a “critical mistake” but remains motivated for the rest of the competition. Cornelia Mihai (UAE) who took the bronze medal in 2017 is the first ranked woman, in 8th place alongside Armando Fattoruso (ITA) and Kai Bunkus (GER). Cedric Veiga Rios came 9th in 2017.

Accuracy

Multiple champion and winner of The World Games 2013 and FAI World Air Games 2015, Curt Bartholemew (USA) scored 86. Armando Fattoruso (ITA) and Nicolas Coadic (FRA) both scored 84, and Nicholas Batsch (USA) took fourth place with 81. Female pilots Robin Jandle, Jeannie Bartholemew (both USA) and Cornelia Mihai (UAE) all scored 67.

Distance

Abdulbari Qubaisi (UAE) took the lead scoring 174.87 in the distance, followed by Cedric Veiga Rios (FRA) with 161.00, and Nicholas Batsch of USA just behind with 160.66. First female Cornelia Mihai (UAE) came in fourth place with 154.49.

Freestyle

Nicholas Batsch (USA) is currently in first place with 89.200, followed by Max Kossidowski (GER) with 87.000. Christian Webber (DEN) came in third with 85.400.

Speed

Cedric Veiga Rios (FRA) took first place in this round with 2.332, hotly followed by USA’s Justin Price with 2.362. Kevin Techer (FRA) gained 2.420.