Author: X-Pyr
Maxime Pinot segundo en gol en la X-Pyr 2018
Maxime Pinot termina segundo la carrera, en el final del 5º Día. ¡¡Enhorabuena!!
Maxime Pinot second in goal in X-Pyr 2018
Maxime Pinot finishes second the race, in the end of the 5th day. Congratulations!!
Day 5 – Update
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/
Day 4 – Update
Another exciting day!
Maurer had more long flights. After passing TP 6 at Pedraforca the night before, he was poised to pass Canigo (TP7). He did so and flew out to towards goal, but due to the last minute notification of the cancellation of the organisation’s NOTAM, he had to be informed in the air that he could not progress in the air. The cancellation of the NOTAM was a big blow and an even greater headache for the organisers. Maurer spiralled down and progressed to the final turn point on foot, leaving himself only 16km to do the next day.
Meanwhile Maxime Pinot was having a couple of epic days. Having battled for hours to tag TP 5 in the air – and coming as close as 10m, he finally managed to get it. Landing and hiking to it was not an option due to the terrain, so he just had to battle with the low cloud until he could get within the cyclinder radius. Lots of effort and little distance. He started day 4 at the ski station of Baqueira where it was 50km/h and he battled strong head winds all day. Once he got off, the strong tailwind gave him a bonus 15 km but to get back up to a launch meant a 1400m ascent. Finally he arrived at Pedra Forca and then onwards into the Cerdanya valley. Maxime went to school there and knows the flying well, however the wind made his day hard. He crossed from La Molina to Puigmal (which means “Bad Mountain” in Catalan), and then lost the signal for both his tracker and spot. As it was getting late, his supporter Jeremie Lager hiked up and found Maxime after an hour and a half. They spent the night in an old broken shepherds hut, which Jeremie described as “just a pile of rocks full of snow”!
Standa Mayer took a different route to Pinot and others and made massive progress, leap-frogging other competitors. To show you the difference in distance covered here are some statistics on their relative distances covered during day 4:
Maurer 111km
Pinot 117km
de Freyman 130km
Garza 68km
Keller 46km
Mayer 188km!
Juraj Koren ended up the day in 7th place.
Highlights X-Pyr 2018 – Day 1
Enjoy with the first video summary of this X-Pyr 2018.
Day 1 Race Report
Day-1: Race Report
A sunny day greated X-Pyr 4th edition. After the group picture at the beach all pilots took off running to the first turn point, “La Rhune” (900m). This is a hard uphill run for a hot summer day, and yet we had the fastest first leg of the race ever, at just over 2h30′ to reach Turn Point #1 running Nelson De Freyman.
Jesse Williams reported a hard landing with no consequences.
Although flight conditions where light at La Rhune, pilots managed to engage good cross country flights and turm it into the best day-1 progress on X-Pyr records. The stage closed with Christian Maurer (CH) and Maxim Pinot (F) leading the race and being the only two pilots that have made it past Turn Point #2.
https://www.facebook.com/xpyr.xpyr/videos/2005571646128629/
