The 2024 Bundesliga is over. We want to celebrate the winners with you. The regular league reports for rounds 16 and 17 unfortunately had to be cancelled. So here’s a quick overview of the final weekends. If you want to go straight to the conclusion of the league, just scroll down ⬇️
1. Bundesliga
Round 16
The LSV Burgdorf (overall winner 2022) really puts in the effort again and replaces the SFZ Königsdorf in 2nd place. The Bavarians slip to 3rd place and displace the LSV Rinteln, which lands directly in 5th place. In between, the FK Brandenburg takes 4th place.
Even after 16 rounds, the top positions are still pretty close. Fourth and second place are separated by just five points. Since Burgdorf, Königsdorf and FK Brandenburg have largely different flying areas, the weather in round 17 is all-important.
The SFV Bad Wörishofen confidently defended its 1st place in the overall ranking, although top pilot Simon Schröder is already on his way to the USA to represent Germany at the World Championship. 9 points are a decent cushion over the LSV Burgdorf, but here too the weather situation could cause some excitement due to different starting positions.
LSR Aalen, overall winner from 2023, also shows fighting spirit and works its way back up to 6th place. However, the gap to 3rd place is so big at 17 points that a miracle would have to happen here. But one thing is certain: the Aalen team will not give up!
Round 17
The German clubs are watching the weather developments in fascination. In round 17, meaningful ratings are only possible in parts of the center and the east. Neither LSV Burgdorf nor SFZ Königsdorf can submit a rating. This is particularly bitter for the Bavarians, because FK Brandenburg was able to push past Königsdorf with flights west of Berlin. LSR Aalen showed fighting spirit and pushed past LSV Rinteln, in fifth place.
The podium of the 1. Bundesliga
The winners have now been decided in the last round. We congratulate the 🥇 SFV Bad Wörishofen, the 🥈 LSV Burgdorf and the 🥉 FK Brandenburg on their place on the podium 👏
With locations in Bavaria, Lower Saxony and Brandenburg, it was therefore possible to fly at the top of the rankings across a wide area. It gets interesting when you look at the number of pilots in each club. More on that later.
Who do we have to say goodbye to?
In the final round, it is of course time to say goodbye. The following clubs are relegated to the 2. Bundesliga:
What is particularly striking here is that these are exclusively clubs from the west of central Germany. Even the Dannstadt team, which traditionally has a solid reputation in the 1st Bundesliga, was unable to catch up. The weather distribution in 2024 does not seem to be entirely innocent here.
2. Bundesliga
Round 16
FC Bronkow can carry the momentum from round 15 and moves into the promotion ranks with a fourth place in the round. LSV Straubing is flying with similar ambitions and is lurking in sixth place overall, only 6 points behind. Here too, the weather will play a role in round 17 due to the different starting positions.
The bronze medal also remains exciting. Only one point separates FLG Dettingen u. Teck from LSC Bayer Leverkusen, currently in third place.
SFG Wenningfeld from NRW already has victory safely in its hands. With 160 points, the club is 28 points ahead. Uncatchable for second-placed BAeC-Mitte.
Worth mentioning is the Aero Team Klix, which was able to move up 5 places to 8th place with a round win. 13 points to the promotion place does not seem impossible. They will certainly give it their all in round 17.
Round 17
Leverkusen can no longer submit a score in the last round. The duel therefore goes to FLG Dettingen u. Teck, who can still work their way up with a round win.
However, the Leverkusen team did not miss out on promotion, even though the Aero Team Klix got a bit closer to them. Klix managed to gain two places and ended up in sixth place overall. They narrowly missed out on promotion. Next year, their consistently good performance will definitely pay off.
LSV Straubing submitted a desperate score, but unfortunately that wasn’t enough to secure promotion. 7th place for the Bavarians.
The podium of the 1. Bundesliga
The winners are also finally decided in the last round. We congratulate the 🥇 SFG Wenningfeld, the 🥈 FLG Dettingen u. Teck and the 🥉 BAeC-Mitte on their place on the podium 👏
Who can we welcome to the 1. Bundesliga?
The Swabians from Dettingen deserve special mention here. Having only been promoted last season, they are marching through the 2nd division this year and can prove themselves in the 1st Bundesliga next year.
Who is coming and who is going in the 2nd Bundesliga?
We welcome the HVL Boberg (5082 points) from the North Region, the FK Carl Zeiss Jena (5109 points) from the Central Region, the FPG Krefeld-Egelsberg (5549 points) from NRW, the FG Neckartal Köngen (4729 points) from BaWü and the SFZ Ottengründer Heide (4382) from Bavaria. Congratulations to everyone!
The relegation spot goes to FSG Schwarze-Heide (4774 points), which prevailed against all other runners-up in the regional divisions and SFG Bensheim (4088 points, 20th place in the 2nd Bundesliga).
From a pure points perspective, it quickly becomes clear that our promoted team can definitely compete in the top ranks. Let’s see if there is a club next season that can march through like the Dettingers did this year.
Now for the painful part. The following clubs will be relegated from the Regionalliga next year. But we will definitely see one or two clubs promoted again in the future:
Junior League
After the SFZ Königsdorf failed to make it onto the podium in the 1st Bundesliga, they can celebrate their juniors. We congratulate the 🥇 SFZ Königsdorf, the 🥈 SFZ Aachen and the 🥉 LV Reutlingen on their podium place 👏
The points make it clear how dominant Königsdorf was. Aachen (winner 2023) had a hard time holding its own. But next year the cards will be reshuffled, we are sure of that.
The league highlights from 2024
Higher faster further
How was the league season compared to last year? First of all: when you look at the absolute top speed, it wasn’t much slower. If you look at the points in the 1st Bundesliga, you’ll immediately notice that Bad Wörishofen, with around 6660 points, was able to collect a lot fewer points than last year’s winner (LSR Aalen, 7840 points). Ergo, due to the weather, the league teams simply couldn’t collect points as diligently as they did in 2023.
The best weekend was round 1 on 27 and 28 April with fantastic weather in the Alps and parts of the low mountain ranges:
But it is also clear that the freak weather has not made the league any less exciting. On the contrary. While Aalen won the league early last year with an enormous lead, in 2024 the fight went down to the last round. The slightly lower total number of points from SFV Bad Wörishofen (157 points) makes it clear that it was more challenging this year to regularly dominate the rounds and finish in first place with 20 round points. In fact, the Allgäu club only managed one round win (LSR Aalen had 4 round wins in 2023). This makes Bad Wörishofen’s performance in achieving consistently good placings in the difficult conditions all the more remarkable.
Noteworthy: The fastest in the 2024 Bundesliga was a junior from the regional league. Finn Gutzeit from FC Bad Berka Weimar was able to fly 160 speed points with an LS4 at the end of April. That corresponds to a 2-hour speed of 165 km/h and 330 kilometers flown. For comparison: a Ventus 3 18m would have to cover around 375 kilometers in the 2 hours to get the same number of points, respect. Finn narrowly missed the speed point record from last year. That is held by Michael Ebel with 162 points.
Matthias Schunk achieved the most track points with his infamous Alpamare Viereck over 1000km with 135 points in the Quintus M. Matthias was also unable to break last year’s track point record. This is still held by his club colleague Johannes Beyer with 150 points.
Most Valuable Player
Of course, we would like to honor the participants who have earned the most points for their club. This year, first place goes to Simon Schröder (SFV Bad Wörishofen, 2076 points). It is clear that Simon has made a significant contribution to the small Bavarian club’s success this year. Congratulations Simon!
Behind him is Michael Petzold (SFV Mannheim, 1906 points), who was last year’s Most Valuable Player, followed by Wolfgang Lehnert (FSC Odenwald, 1903 points).
The first junior in the list is Jens Kammerer (LSV Bruchsal, 1641 points) in 5th place. If you only look at the juniors, Jens leads the list, followed by Jannis Däuble (FSV Ammerbuch, 1488 points) and Jan Schulz (LSG Isny, 1472 points)
Among the women, Antje Senske from FC Otto Lilienthal Anklam (Northern Region) collected the most points for her club (960 points). In second place is Lisa Scheller (956 points) from SFG Werdenfels (Bavaria Region), followed by Nadja Eisenmenger (904 points) from FBG Pattonville (BaWü Region).
David versus Goliath?
Here, the SFV Bad Wörishofen deserves attention again. With just 10 pilots, the club was able to win the 1st Bundesliga, great praise for the unbroken motivation of the small Allgäu club, which is also located away from the usual race tracks (but to be fair, with a little travel, it has access to both the Alps and the low mountain ranges).
The board and some league pilots of the SFV Bad Wörishofen
With 33 pilots, SFZ Königsdorf was able to field the most league teams. Followed by FG Örlinghausen and LSV Burgdorf with 27 pilots each.
Airplanes
Which aircraft are flown the most league flights? The top three show a similar picture to last year and the year before. The Ventus 3 (300 lap results) is ahead of the Arcus (207) and the Ventus 2c (179).
However, something has changed in 4th place. Here the ASG29 (140) replaces the LS8 (119), which is now in 5th place. We have observed that the ASG29 is increasingly being used in clubs. Possibly a small indication of this.
The first club class is the LS4 in 10th place with 70 lap results. It is exciting that this aircraft achieved the fastest league result this year, we think that is really noteworthy 👏
Until next year
This concludes the 2024 Gliding Bundesliga season. We warmly congratulate all participants on their successes and look forward to the coming season. See you next year!
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