Europeans swept the top spots in individual and team competition at the 16th FAI Hang Gliding World Championships, which concluded in Big Spring Saturday night.

Hungarian Atilla Bertok overcame the “pre-worlds curse” to take top individual honors, while Great Britain confounded the so-called “experts” by taking the team title.

Bertok will have nothing but fond memories of Big Spring, having taken top individual honors at this year’s world championships and last year’s “pre-worlds” event. It marked the first time anyone has performed that double feat.

“This is like winning a stage of the Tour de France, or even winning the Indianapolis 500,” a beaming Bertok said.

Meet Director David Glover said there were some simple reasons why Bertok edged Austrians Robert Reisinger and Gerolf Heinrichs for the title.

“He’s been doing it a long time (21 years), but he’s also flying a glider perfectly suited to him,” Glover said. “He’s the most accomplished hang glider in the world and he’s been doing it a long time. No one can come in and have his kind of success immediately.”

In team competition, Great Britain didn’t have any dominant individual competitors, but it had a lot of very good ones — four placed in the top 20 — which was more than good enough to give that country the gold medal.

France finished second in team competition, while Austria was third.

“I thought the keys were us having good consistency and good teamwork,” British team member Robin Hamilton said. “We only got together for the first time shortly before this competition. We’ve known each other for years, but we’ve only been a team for a little while now.”

Glover said team chemistry was the key to Britain’s success.

“Each team member played his role to perfection,” Glover said. “Almost every other team had better individual pilots, but Great Britain had the best overall team. They just didn’t do one or two things well, they did four or five things well.”

The United States finished eighth in team competition, with Glen Volk placing 20th in individual competition.

Despite having one day of competition rained out, Glover was quick to tip his hat to Big Spring and call this year’s event the most successful world championships ever.

“This was the best-ever world championships. The pilots said it, the team leaders said it and the manufacturers said it,” Glover said. “The people here were great and the conditions were the best we’ve ever seen.”

Individual results (points in parenthesis)

1. Attila Bertok, Hungary (6,403).

2. Robert Reisinger, Austria (6,387).

3. Gerolf Heinrichs, Austria (6,124).

4. Mario Alonzi, France (6,096).

5. Alessandro Ploner, Italy (6.036).

6. Gary Wirdnam, Great Britain (6,011).

7. Kraig Coomber, Austria (5,965).

8. Carl Wallbank, Great Britain (5,827).

9. Lucas Bader, Germany (5,823).

10. Dan Vyhnalik, Czech Republic (5,749).

Team results (points in parenthesis)

1. Great Britain (18,426).

2. France (18,164).

3. Austria (17,947).

4. Italy (17,703).

5. Germany (17,559).

6. Australia (17,412).

7. Japan (16,166).

8. United States (15,952).

9. Brazil (15,331).

10. Czech Republic (15,101).

Contact Staff Writer Steve Reagan at 263-7331, ext. 234 or by e-mail at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it