Video: Oberrauner in goal
Team Simon Oberrauner arrives at the finish line.
Author: Judith
Simon Oberrauner arrives in goal!
The fourth and final team to arrive in goal in this edition were Austrian team Oberrauner. The two Simons and their assistant Moritz walked to thr take-off together and the flew down to the raft to reach goal. Another rookie in the competition, this was the first time Simon had flown in the Pyrenees. He says he will definetly come back!
Simon is the final pilot who will make it to the end of the speed section. After 300 km of hiking and 300 km of hiking we congratulate him on this huge achievment.
Well done!
Maxime Pinot arrives at the finish line!
Maxime Pinot has arrived at the finish!
After battling hard and walking more than 285 km of the race, Maxime has reached the final turn point and finish line of the 2022 X-Pyr.
His nemesis, the Pic de Midi de Bigorre (TP 5) again gave him problems, but he dug deep and was placed ahead of the pack on several occasions. Yesterday he spent 11 hours in the air and arrived in first place on the south side of the Canigo mountain (the penultimate turn point of the last edition), ahead of Chrigel Maurer and Pierre Remy. Once he got to the flatlands ahead of turn point 7 (St Helena de Rodes) he had to land. Chrigel Maurer then had the opportunity to overtake.
Congratulations to Maxime on getting to the finish and completing this edition of the X-Pyr.
Félicitations!
Video Update – Day 6
News from the back, middle and front of the race and we have a winner!
Update Day 6
Withdrawals: Sadly, Xevi Bonet and Sergi Claret have withdrawn from the competition.
The livetracking was out for an hour this evening because of hackers but was restored in time to see the big finish this evening. If you are looking for scores, these can be found on the web site at http://dev-x-pyr.com/score/
Only these are the official scores. The live tracking is not used for official scoring.
News!
This morning we spoke to Team Curran, Patrick Sieber, Keith Paterson, Mikolaj Kocot and Rich Binstead who were all heading up to TP 3 at Peña Montañesa. All were hiking up to get the turn point and then hoped for a good day. Yuji Emoto flew a blinder late in the evening yesterday and made up much ground on the other athletes ahead of him. He hiked a different way and he and Reta Reiser are leading the pack to TP 4.
For the second day running they were blessed with high skies, lighter winds and good conditions – which to the regular pilot means funky thermals, rough stuff and epic take offs (to quote the pilots).
Greg Hamerton has also progressed and along with Nicholas Hayes and Johannes Helleland – all left TP3 in their wake. David Liano is also close to TP 3.
The top leg of the X seems to have been not easy for almost all the pilots. After a couple of days, Lars Meerstetter made it past TP5. David Corpas and James Elliot are 2km and 6km short respectively and also almost there but Fabian Umbricht, Andreas Viehbock, Logan Walters and Thibault Voglet (who had a broken line, as did Andreas) are along the course line. Cedar Wright whom we met pounding the asphalt yesterday has joined them on the 60.9km leg.
Noe Court and Jordi Vilalta have cracked TP6 at El Corronco and are buzzing along nicely, doubtless grateful for the strongish westerly tailwinds.
Tim Alongi and Simon Oberrauner have tagged TP7 Pic del Moros and Noe Court is on his way there.
But the BIG news is that this morning Pierre Remy was in the lead by about 22km over Maxime Pinot and Chrigel Maurer. They started flying at 8 am – it’s very unusual to have the right conditions so early in the day – and have flown for 11 hours today. It was neck and neck for much of the day until Maxime Pinot flew to the south of Canigo and looked set to cross the line first. The live tracking went out and we had no idea what was happening until we contacted Chrigel’s team to be told he’d found a thermal and was heading towards ESS at 1500m with a glide angle of 12:1.
Action stations as everyone shot off to St Helena de Rodes to set the scene and to set up cameras and prepare to broadcast live. We can announce that Christian (Chrigel) Maurer is the winner of the X-Pyr 2022!
Tomorrow more arrivals at the Finish!
Interview Team Paterson – Day 6
Darren Goodlad gives us another update on the team’s progress.
Interview Team Sieber – Day 6
Manon Sieber gives us an update on Patrick’s progress.
Interview Team Binstead – Day 6
Conan Burch, recaps the week, the team spirit and his hightlights.
Interview Rich Binstead – Day 6
Rich, from Team Australia reviews his week and tells us about his experiences.
Interview – Rob Curran Day 6
Rob Curran tells us about his past few days and his adventure sleeping on the mountain.
Update Day 5 – evening
Another withdrawal: Tanguy Renaud-Goud who was the winner of UAE Hike & Fly Championships and current leader of the Hike & Fly World Cup. He hiked 40km yesterday and he has a damaged knee and ankle. We are so sorry to hear this and wish him a swift and complete recovery.
News from the head of the race…
This morning we met Maxime Pinot in the cold, rain and miserable weather and he wasn’t looking forward to the day. He hiked across to Spain following a similar route to Chrigel Maurer. We also headed to Spain and the weather was totally different beyond the border and the tunnel of Vielha. The sun was shining and there was high cloud.
Chrigel Maurer and Maxime Pinot pushed hard towards TP 6, but Pierre Remy, who lives near TP5, Midi de Bigorre, took a different route, heading for Castejon de Sos. He got the turn point first and is currently 17 km beyond the turnpoint. Pinot and Maurer are 8 km short of the turn point. So we have a new leader. Pierre has 78.8km go to the next turn point at the Pic dels Morros and 177.3 km to go to the end of speed section at St Helena de Rodes.
The forecast is great for tomorrow and there will be a westerly wind helping them along so they could theoretically get to goal tomorrow. It’s going to be a nail-biter. Three things about this…
1) Chrigel has won this competition three times before and the final turn points are always somewhere along this area. He knows it well.
2) Maxime went to school in Font Romeu, where paragliding is an elective. The take-off at Targassonne is at the turnpoint. Maxime knows this area between Andorra and east of Targassone well and should feel right at home.
3) For the first time, it is possible to fly all the way to the final TP at Santa Helena. In previous editions, due to the CTR of Girona Airport and the drop zone at Empuria Brava, pilots had to walk the final 30+ km to the final turn point. This year it is possible to fly there, under a certain altitude.
Keep watching to see if the first pilots arrive tomorrow!
Last night we had 10 pilots between TP 4 Arras and TP5 Midi du Bigorre, after the leading 4 Maurer, Pinot, Remy and Oberrauner had tagged the turn point and headed for 6.
Today only more 2 pilots managed to get past the big bad mountain – Tim Alongi and Jordi Vilalta, leaving Noe Court, Lars Meerstetter, Tomas Matera, James Elliot, David Corpas, Fabian Umbricht, Andreas Viehbock and Logan Walters closing in on the point but yet to round it.
The large number of pilots who experienced poor weather and were unable to progress much beyond TP2 at Accous yesterday were rewarded today with much better conditions and a number are overnighting close to TP3 Peña Montañesa, including Rob Curran.
The exciting race was actually at the back today. Keep tuned to that one tomorrow as well, as a lot of pilots are neck-and-neck and will leap frog each other for sure.
The forecast on the course leading to TP4 does look interesting. Winds are light but swinging from WSW, through N to ENE.
Two quick bits of team news…
Kinga has been biviing every night and we met her in a hurry to get to the village of Campo by this evening. The motivator was a night in a hotel, so she was determined to get there before 9pm so as not to miss the chance to have a comfortable bed.
And Rob Curran, he decided to climb Pena Montanesa to tag the turn point and thought he had enough time to get down again. In his words, he worked hard but didn’t think smart and didn’t make it back down the hill. He now has to sleep on a ledge as he is stuck there until 7am. His supporters will bring him a bivi bag and food, but he has a long, uncomfortable night ahead.
Tomorrow could be the day we have our first pilots in goal… or maybe Saturday. Keep tuned and enjoy the race.
Update Day 5 – evening
News about the leaders, the rest, tomorrow and some of the teams.
Interview with Team Masztalerz – Day 5
Ross Desmond, Kinga Masztalerz supporter, talks us though their race so far, how it’s going and the plan for tomorrow.
