No rule was broken, there was no cheating

A decision was made on the last day of the championship by the Competition Organisation to penalise all nine Australian pilots based on an untrue accusation that data had been gained illicitly. The pilots had in fact not broken any rules.

An appeal against the penalty was made by the Australian Team but the International Jury upheld the penalty even though no rule was broken. The Jury did not directly refer to any rule in its explanation for its decision.

The Australian Team pilots’ appeal to the FAI also resulted in a decision against them and the Decision statement incredibly made no reference to any rules whatsoever. The report did say the Australian Team breached a rule, but the rule was only partially quoted which concealed the fact that the rule was for the Organisation, not pilots.

The Organisation, the Jury and the FAI panel each tried to find a rule that would stick, each of their allegations being different. First was the suggestion by the Organisation that data was accessed illicitly, which was not true, second was the suggestion by the Jury that there was unauthorized interference with equipment, which was not true, and third was the suggestion by FAI that the pilots breached a rule that in fact applied to how the Organisation should display sailplane data. This was a clear attempt by all parties who all had a conflict of interest to find something to justify the penalty and outcome they wanted.