Today Maurer won the X-Pyr 2018!
He arrived in the morning of day 5, having hiked up to St Helena de Rodes. We broadcasted it on Facebook live and you can replay the action whenever you like. He later flew down to the goal at Port de la Selva. Congratulations to Chrigel!
Chrigel estimated 5.5 days to complete the course and as usual he beat his own time!
Maxime Pinot, having spent a cold, wet and windy night on Puigmal in an old broken shepherd’s hut, which Jeremie described as “just a pile of rocks full of snow”, he continued on and made the final turnpoint and end-of race section at St Helena in the evening. Well done!
Standa was chasing hard, but was not able to complete the course before the compulsory overnight rest time. Nelson de Freyman also made good progress. The weather was extremely stormy in Catalunya yesterday, with the radar showing a massive area of precipitation.
In the chasing pack at TP5, there was lots of action. After tagging the turn point, Hayden Grey and Juraj Koren met up at a coll along the course line and launched together. Strong valley winds meant the were separated with Hayden making the most progress. Vuirpillot got the turnpoint hiking and was back down in sunshine at 1.30pm, heading for a coll to take off from. Other pilots near the Bigorre turnpoint had to battle with low cloud, thick fog, precipitation that mean that visibility was sometimes less than 10m. It made hiking very, very tiring. Arevalo, Cocanea, Bramfitt, Williams and Cannell made it into the cylinder in these conditions, with Umbricht very closely following. Flying off the mountain was not an option. Conditions were far too bad, so a long hike down was required.
Cocanea managed to get himself into clear air and launched from a coll at 7.30pm. This flight down meant he was able to catch up with Vuirpillot and the two are now very close. Joao Veiga is currently the only other pilot who has crossed the main spine and is heading for TP5.
Unfortunately, Wesley Murch has had to withdraw from the race. The mixed martial arts fighter fought blisters, sun stroke and fatigue and was only defeated by a broken clutch in his vehicle.
The roving reporter team of Judith Mole and Andy Read caught up with many pilots and supporters today and you can see their interviews on our Facebook page and YouTube channel.
https://www.facebook.com/100006494946939/videos/2443932219166586/
