On Dec 24, 7:24 am, Andreas Maurer wrote:
On Sun, 23 Dec 2007 21:13:31 -0800 (PST), Tim Taylor

wrote:
Again, congratulation to the FAI World GP Gliding Championship team
for putting a fantastic viewer spectacle together.

I have to admit that I cannot agree at all.

The first mention of this GP in German newspapers were articles after
Herbert's accident. Nearly all the major newspapers in Germany had
huge artilces about his accident.

In my local newspaper the GP got a complete, promotion-free page. Two
articles, each mentioning how dangerous gliding is, listing all the
people killed by gliding in the last 20 years.
Over and over again.

Definitely the mother of all PR disasters. Couldn't have been worse.

Bye
Andreas

Andreas,

We are all saddened by the loss of Herbert Weiss during the contest,
but to blame the contest for his death is irrational. We all accept
the risk every time we fly or race. Should we end F1 racing or any
other sport where participants can die?

What we are saying is the new form of coverage with a shotgun start,
live gps tracking, in plane cameras and helicopter camera ship made
this a spectator sport for the first time. The ability for us to
watch it live all around the world and the future made for television
productions as well as the DVD will add to interest to the sport
overall.

Imagine day 4 without this type of coverage. We would have seen that
Bruce Taylor had won, but would have never seen the drama of Uli
Schwenk's great flight that had a lead of over 25 km at one point.
His save from only a few hundred feet to finish second for the day was
spectacular and heartbreaking at the same time. Even more telling was
the ability to have interviews live as the pilots got out of the
cockpit. Uli admitting that he had gotten very low and didn't want to
do that again.

The GP team is to be commended for pushing the edge of technology to
make our sport accessible to others in a new way. I can someday see
sailplane racing playing on a cable sports channel just as we see
other races. Where are Jeep and Nissan as sponsors for the Extreme
Sailplane Racing Series? I think it may happen one day.