Leo Hoarau wins BGD Weightless 2025

Congratulations to Leo Hoarau (92kg), Sergiu Enea (104kg) and Jeroen Minnema (98kg), who won the Overall, Sports and Standard classes respectively of BGD Weightless 2025. Team BGD 1 were the top-ranked team.

68 pilots took part in this year’s event, with four tasks scored (45.41km, 31.83km, 67.75km, 49.74km – distances with turnpoint radius 0 … explanation below!)

This year’s Weightless was the 6th edition. It was held in Laragne-Monteglin, Southern France, from 2-8 August, run by Flying Karlis and the Chabre Club. The competition was open to gliders rated EN-D and below and used MRT – Multiple Radius Turnpoints – for different weight classes.

The aim of the MRT is to level out the playing field for pilots of different weights. It is widely accepted that heavier pilots / bigger gliders have a performance advantage over lighter pilots / smaller gliders. During the previous Weightless events different ways of compensating performance have been tried, including weight classes. Recently there has been an alternative idea to compensate for weight in competitions by adding extra drag to larger pilots using what has become known as ‘drag noodles’, though this idea has proved not so popular.

We have been developing the MRT (Multiple Radius Turnpoints) for ten years, and it is still evolving and being fine-tuned. This is how this year’s MRT scoring worked:

Each pilot was weighed along with their kit, and categorised into one of ten groups:

1. 120kg+ (4 pilots)


2. 110-119kg (9 pilots)


3. 101-109kg (11 pilots)


4. 92-100kg (17 pilots)


5. 85-91kg (14 pilots)


6. 79-84kg (5 pilots)


7. 74-78kg (3 pilots)


8. 70-73kg (3 pilots)


9. 66-69kg (1 pilot)


10. <65kg (0 pilots)

For each task, a QR code was created for each group with turnpoint cylinders of different sizes. There were no pilots in the sub-65kg (Group 10) category; The lightest pilots in the competition (group 9, 66-69kg) flew 17.8% less distance in each task than the 120kg+ group, whose turnpoint radius was the smallest radius. The lighter pilots flew the same turnpoints with a larger radius leading to a shorter task distance.

Overall this system worked well, and all pilots who had instruments that accepted QR codes found the tasks easy to enter in their instruments and easy and safe fly. The amount of compensation of 17.8% worked pretty well, though the very light pilots still found a slight disadvantage in strong conditions. This competition demonstrated the effectiveness of this system. Statistical analysis of this event’s results will enable us to tweak the scoring system even further for next time.

RESULTS

Overall

1. Leo Hoarau, FRA, Ozone Zeno 2, 92kg, group 4
2. Florin Berinde, FRA, Ozone Zeno 2, 105kg, group 3
3. Sergiu Enea, BEL, Ozone Photon, 104kg, group 3

Sport Class (Up to EN C)

1. Sergiu Enea, BEL, Ozone Photon, 104kg, group 3
2. Guillaume Funck, FRA, BGD Cure 3, 93kg, group 4
3. Bruce Goldsmith, GBR, BGD Cure 3, 93kg, group 4

Standard Class (up to EN B)

1. Jeroen Minnema, NED, Niviuk Ikuma 3P, 98kg, group 4
2. Lauris Pumpurs, LAT, Niviuk Rook 4, 98kg, group 4
3. Heather Atkins, GBR, Ozone Rush 6, 85kg, group 5

Teams

1. BGD 1 (Tyr Goldsmith, Cesar Arevalo, Bruce Goldsmith, Paula Pintaric)
2. BGD 2 (Guillaume Funck, Kayvan Arianpour, Edward Day, Milly Wallace)
3. GER/AUT (Samuel Tanner, Daniel Maraz, Jonathan Kalmbach)

It was a fun and successful competition all round – thanks to all the pilots who took part. We look forward to seeing you again next year!

In-air photos: Guillaume Funck