Kobala Open (2020) for the third time organized by KZMB

Kobala Open 2020

This year's Kobala Open 2020 was the Slovenian national championship and took place between 17. and 21. August, at the same time, there was a desire after the Czech National Championship, Sport Class and Rigid Wings. You can imagine what it is like to prepare for a competition during a period of corona crisis, to follow all the measures that are constantly changing, and at the same time to ensure that people have a good time. Just two days before the start, we learned that almost 20 fewer pilots will take part in the competition, Czech pilots who thought that Kobal would also be their DP, but due to the Covid situation they could not come to Slovenia, which ranked the Czech Republic the day before to the yellow list. Some other foreigners also gave up, mostly due to fear and virus testing. Thus, all other categories were eliminated and we were left with only the open national championship. We had 16 registered until Thursday, and then Balazs also joined us.

So we started a little more awkward, the number of people was significantly less than expected and desired, at the same time everyone wanted to fly, and the weather forecast was not the most promising. Then came Monday, August 17th, the competition officially started, we drove to the take-off point, the sky was interesting, the possibility of developing thermals was great, but we knew that in the evening, if not earlier, it would rain. The daily task was drawn up, confirmed by the security commission, and then the situation was awaited. As you know, this should not be missing in the competition either. Eventually, the weather conditions improved, all the competitors flew away, but the race for that day was interrupted after a bad hour of pilots in the air. The point cylinder was on the verge of rain, a storm cloud began to form but the most important thing was the safety of the participants. The next day it was also rany.

The weather forecast had already indicated 10 days earlier that the weekend would be beautiful. We focused all our hopes on Thursday and Friday. But, the closer these days were coming, the worse the weather forecast was. Of course it was possible to fly, it did not rain, but the tasks were not so long and challenging, the main challenge was the weather and to drive the whole discipline, time did not play such a big role. Suddenly, Wednesday looked better, even though we originally thought we would be grounded for another day. The weather forecast was similar to Monday, with air pressure rising slightly. In the morning, the decision was made to drive to Kobala and hope for the best. Feelings did not deceive us, we managed to perform a little more than 70 kilometers of discipline. On that day, Slovenian pilot Stanislav Galovec was the first to reach the finish line. We have Thursday and Friday left, two more flying days. The weather was stable, but nothing special, no strong thermals. The tasks were 73 km and 76 km long. Thus, Franc Peternel was the first to reach the finish line on Thursday, followed only a second by the Hungarian pilot Balazs Ujhelyi, and the latter was the first to drink beer at the finish line on Friday.

We finished the competition on Friday as soon as the results became official. The foreigners wanted to return to their homeland as soon as possible. After the award ceremony, there was no gathering this year thanks to Covid. The final results are as follows: III. place Jože Frim, II. place Peter Kejžar and I. place Stanislav Galovec.",