With only 9 competitors this year we hade a very small competition. Five pilots from The Netherlands and 4 from Denmark. The amount of Dutch competitors must have been an all time record and even the amount of Danish pilots was not that bad. We missed the Lithuanians (were not allowed to take a week off between the Aalborg and Sebnitz competition, so we also missed Peteris Brokans who is normally traveling with them), the Swedish were or studying, divorcing or had other family matters. And then we missed Jari and Laura from Finland and Vincent Bernecker from Germany who normally used to come to this competition. Under normal circumstances we have 16-20 pilots which is still rather small compared to other competitions but the atmosphere, the other opponents (the Danish, Finnish, Lithuanians and Swedish we don't see too often on German competitions) and flying at sea level (+1 m) makes it worth to travel to here. Engines run faster at sea level.
OK, 9 competitors but with the two-live-system you still need to fly 6 times to win this competition. 

And we were happy with the small amounts of competitors, it was raining 2 days. The day after the competition the sun was shining and short trousers were needed. I took the possibility to walk from the competition field to the model flying shop of my parents in law which is almost 10 kilometers. 

About the competition: I had repaired Rink's his 3 engines but was not able to put a new contra weight in ones of his engines. Helle and I had the week off in between Tautenhain/Bitterfeld and Aalborg and have enjoyed the summer house of Helle's parents and the windy and rainy days. Nice time to read and repair engines but no Lathe to make a contra weight was available.
Rik used this engine also and I really start doubting about contra weights. The engine was as good as before and was not vibrating at all. 
Monique had to show that she was able to win small competitions as well (this is what the Danish told her).

Next year it will be difficult to choose. Aalborg is always in the whit sun weekend (I am visiting this competition since 1984 yearly) and next year there will be a competition in Paris as well in that weekend. 
If we don't go to Denmark this competition will slowly die I expect.
Do we go to Paris and this competition turns out to be a one day fly, what do we have left then. It is a pity that 2 competitions are organized in the same weekend. We are not with so many in Europe. It is also a pity that so many competitions are held in a very short period. We have 4 competitions in Mai/June with maybe 1 weekend off and 3 competitions in September.
The result will be that some competitions are unnecessary small.

Lets see what happens next year.