With eighteen months to go before the 11th FAI Women’s World Gliding Championship – aka WWGC2021 – comes to Hus Bos in August 2021, preparations are well on their way with the team focusing on promotion and on finalising the competition organisation team. One of our key aims in hosting WWGC2021 is to raise the profile of gliding, and in particular women’s gliding: it’s not just another comp of interest only to those who compete, we hope to shine a spotlight on gliding so that the wider public get to see what fun we have and maybe give gliding a go. To this end, you may have seen some of the coverage on BBC and ITV nationwide as well as local press during the year. We hope to continue this during 2020 as we showcase women gliding – from their first steps on an airfield to competing for international medals. The BBC are covering this as an ongoing ‘story’ – they’ve been back to film us twice so far.
To start to raise awareness of WWGC2021, we held a VIP Day at the HusBos Challenge Cup in August where we invited local politicians and organisations along, explained our plans, showed them a competition launch and flew them all on the BGA simulator. Preparations are in full swing for the Husbos Challenge Cup 2020 which will be open to WWGC2021 pilots and serve as the WWGC ‘pre- worlds’ competition – practice both for international competitors and the competition team!
The dates for WWGC2021 have changed slightly at the IGC’s request to avoid a clash between the
2021 WWGC, Europeans and Junior Worlds. The comp has been pushed back by a week and the new
dates are:
Aug 9 – Aug 13 – practice days (normal club flying)
Aug 14 – Opening ceremony (normal club flying)
Aug 15 – Aug 27 – contest flying (competition arrangements for club flying)
Aug 28 – closing ceremony (normal club flying)
As you can see above, there will be club member flying at Hus Bos throughout WWGC2021; the forthcoming Women’s Worlds in Lake Keepit, Australia in January recently confirmed the same principle. This continues the welcome trend set by Lasham during the 2017 European Championships and will hopefully encourage other large clubs to bid for internationals confident that their members can fly during the comp. Maybe your club in future?
Our official competition logo and a range of related images was designed by Howard Jones (see above and in use on the website). If you didn’t see the great videos produced by Adam Landau at the 2019 HusBos Challenge Cup, make time to catch up on our Youtube channel or the TGC Facebook page – they’re great and test some of the stories we’ll be telling in WWGC2021.
Most of the competition roles have now been staffed although we are looking for additional volunteers, see below. The Competition Director is British Team member Liz Sparrow who deputised in the 2019 Challenge Cup and will direct the 2020 Challenge Cup alongside The Gliding Centre’s Colin Davey. Liz and Colin updated the BGA Executive Committee on our progress yesterday, highlighting the focus on legacy for UK gliding and women gliding in line with the BGA strategy.
Got any suggestions?
If you’ve got any suggestions to help make WWGC2021 really special, please share them with us. How do we best use the competition to raise the profile of gliding and especially women’s gliding in the UK? Tell us at info@wwgc2022.co.uk.
Want to be a ‘games maker’?
Finally, we are looking for volunteers – men and women – for a variety of roles to strengthen the competition team – both for the comp itself and for the overall project. We are looking for:
- help with project planning, airspace, task-setting, promotion, schools/STEM liaison
- sponsors – companies engaging with STEM and green activities or women’s sport – if you work for one or have a contact, please let us know
If you can offer a particular skill or would just like to be part of a great international competition, please contact us! Email info@wwgc2022.co.uk Want to keep up-to-date with WWGC2021 news?
Facebook
Competition YouTube channel
Email us to be added to the mailing list. Best wishes,
The WWGC2021 Competition Team wwgc2022.co.uk info@wwgc2022.co.uk
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