Flying a gas balloon across Europe, and at speed. This is exactly what the participants of the famous Gordon Bennett Cup, the oldest gas balloon competition in the world, do.
This year the participants started in Munster, Germany. To the cheers of the spectators, 21 balloons took to the air.
The goal was to fly as far away from the starting point as possible.
From Germany, the balloons traveled westward through Luxembourg to France. There, three teams completed the journey the next day. The remaining 18 balloons headed over the Pyrenees mountain range to the peninsula of the same name and crossed the threshold of two nights on the road.
And only 12 balloons managed to fly three nights. The atmosphere was heating up. The finish was in the south of Portugal.
The winning team was Austria-2. The pilots were Christian Wagner and Stephanie Liller. They covered 2111 kilometers.
In second place was team Switzerland-1. It flew almost 2110 kilometers. And in third place are the pilots from Germany-3. They’ve covered 2108 and a half kilometers.
This is the 67th Gordon Bennett Cup. It is named after the adventurer James Gordon Bennett Jr., who organized the first such competition in Paris in 1906.
Next year’s competition will start in Metz, France. It is scheduled to begin on September 5.
