Three Polish crews, including 2018 winner Mateusz Rękas, have joined the 69th Gordon Bennett Cup after launching from Gladbeck, Germany, on Friday night. Twenty-six teams from 12 countries are competing in the world’s oldest long-distance gas-balloon race, seeking to travel the greatest straight-line distance from the launch site. Poland has won the event six times, including three consecutive victories from 1933 to 1935. This year’s route carries added security risks near NATO’s eastern flank. Pilots are wary of entering Russian or Belarusian airspace, as well as of GPS jamming and spoofing linked to Russia’s Kaliningrad exclave. The race has a deadly precedent: in 1995, a Belarusian military helicopter shot down a competing balloon after it entered Belarusian airspace, killing American pilots Alan Fraenckel and John Stuart-Jervis. Balloons are expected to remain airborne into the weekend as crews seek favorable winds northward.