A Polk County, Tennessee, woman has claimed the first-ever Team USA gold in the 2020 Women's World Gliding Championship in Australia and marked the first World Gliding gold for the U.S. in 35 years.
Sarah Arnold, owner and operator of Chilhowee Gliderport on U.S. Highway 411 north of Benton, won the gold medal this month in the 2020 Fédération Aéronautique Internationale Women's World Gliding Championship's Standard Class for Team USA.
A pilot since age 13, Arnold competed at Lake Keepit in New South Wales, Australia, in an event that ran from Jan. 3-17. She's co-owned the Chilhowee Gliderport since 2004.
Arnold's win marks only the sixth time in history the U.S. has won gold in a World Gliding Championships event and the first time ever winning gold in Women's World Gliding Championships, according to gliding records.
"Watching other pilots stand on the podium and hear their national anthems really inspired me to bring this trophy back for the United States," Arnold said in a statement on her win. "This is the realization of a dream I have worked very hard toward for many years and I couldn't be more thrilled."
Staff Photo by Dan Henry / The Chattanooga Times Free Press- 4/3/15. Contest manager Sarah Arnold speaks to Frank McDonald before he tows a glider up for practice during the first FAI Pan American Gliding Championships being held at McMinn County Airport from April 3 through the 17th. Competitors from four nations will pilot aircraft using only air currents for lift to determine the winner of the first ever event between North and South America. Arnold, who first competed in 2006, said she was still taking in the win now that she's back home in Tennessee.
Arnold was joined on the podium by Aude Grangeray of France, who took silver, and Ayala Truelove, of the United Kingdom, who won bronze, according to the World Air Sports Federation listing of results in the 10th FAI Women's World Gliding Championship for the Australian event. Arnold competed against 15 other pilots from seven counties. Her Team USA mates were Kathy Fosha and Sylvia Grandstaff, who each competed in the Club Class in the event, and the team captain is John Good.
Good praised Arnold in his Jan. 17 U.S. Soaring Team blog for taking gold with the champion from the past two years hot on her tail.
"Sarah did an outstanding job at this long and challenging contest," Good wrote. "Winning 'wire to wire' is perhaps the hardest way. She had to fly extremely well and consistently to hold off a determined effort by Aude Grangeray of France (the two-time defending champion)."
He said Arnold "was up to this challenge, did not falter, and convinced everyone here - including French team captain Eric Napoleon, who knows soaring talent when he sees it - that she is a worthy and gracious champion."
The last time an American won World Gliding gold was 35 years ago when Doug Jacobs claimed the title, according to the Soaring Society of America's online history of soaring champions. At that time, Jacobs was the first to take gold since George Moffat Jr. won the title for the U.S. in 1974.
Arnold previously claimed the Women's World Gliding bronze in 2013 in France, and silver in 2017 in the Czech Republic event. She was inducted into the Tennessee Aviation Hall of Fame in 2017.
The gliderport Arnold co-owns in Benton was the host for the first-ever Pan American Gliding Championships in spring 2015, when competition flights left from the McMinn County Airport near Athens.
Contact Ben Benton at bbenton@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6569. Follow him on Twitter @BenBenton or at www.facebook.com/benbenton1.