On Monday, January 20, 2020 at 11:51:32 AM UTC-5, Ron Gleason wrote:
On Monday, 20 January 2020 08:38:40 UTC-7, Nick Kennedy wrote:
This just blows my mind.
I've live in Australia and worked there.
Spent 4 full comps seasons Hang Gliding there.
This seems to me to be so out of character to the typical Aussies I know.
Cheating? NFW!
Its just not in their DNA if you ask me.
Does anyone really know what happened?
I'm not on FB
Did they use public tracking that was available to all with no time delay?
Or Did they hack the delayed tracking system?
How did they get caught?
Are team leaders in radio contact with their team all day?
What tipped other team leaders off that something was Up?

Best write up I have seen https://ussoaringteams.org/john-good...for-wwgc-2019/

Agree. There is a also a good write-up on Ritz's famous soaring blog ( http://soaring.eu/ ), from an e-mail to her (posted Jan 20):
"“The home team (Australia) had a (support) team member who had been involved, some years ago, in the creation of the tracking system used in the WWGC 2019. He was in possession of an url (address) that gave him access to the raw data (without the 15 minute delay) of all the participants in the competition. This information was used to coach the home team with respect to starting times, the location of thermals and their strength etc. It created a huge advantage for the pilots of the home team. It was not possible for other teams to find this url (address) so the disadvantage for them was real and could not be undone.
Was it illegal for the home team member to type in the specific url? No, probably not, but the data “found” was not owned by him. It was owned exclusively by the competition management. Seeing those data was one thing but using it to cash in on a competitive advantage for the home team pilots, was not only unethical but nothing less than plain embezzlement. A gliding version of insider trading as a matter of fact.

The team captain of the home team allowed the use of this “stolen” information on a daily basis, misleading to a certain extent his pilots with respect to the legality of the data used to coach them. They all knew it was “zero delay” tracking info but they conveniently (or ultra naively) overlooked the fact that it was in fact cheating on a monumental scale.
The 250 pt (later 225 pt) penalty issued to each home team pilot was basically a smooth over. You get 50 pts penalty for missing the barrel around a turn point by a few hundred meters, even when you round it on the outside of the barrel. That is a pretty stiff penalty…., but for unsporting behavior the price is a measly 25 pts a day. It apparently pays to cheat if the penalty is so light!!! According to the rules, as I interpret them, the whole home team should have been disqualified following this affair.
You wonder how the kingpin of this affair, the home team captain, who is also a leading executive in the Gliding Federation of Australia and a long time IGC delegate, can keep his position after this debacle..!
This occurrence has severely tarnished the image of gliding in general, the GFA in particular and has damaged the reputation of FAI. A very thorough investigation by FAI into this affair seems a necessity. ”

Fairly emotional and strong language.

It will be interesting to see the Contest Manager's report, and the FAI/IGC response.