Today Stanislav Mayer arrived at St Helena de Rodes and was able to
complete his flydown to the raft with Maxime Pinot. Nelson de Freyman
arrived a few hours later. Congratulations to both!
Eduardo Garza pushed hard yesterday and managed to get to the
turnpoint at Canigo (TP7). He decided to sleep on the mountain to
give himself maximum chance to fly and get to St Helena de Rodes and
Port de la Selva before the race ends at 10pm tonight. We are
confident he will do it, so stay tuned for our fifth arrival!
In the battle of the gaggle between TP 5 and 6 Haydon Grey triumphed,
getting to Pedra Forca and beyond. Ignacio Aravelo was the sole
competitor to choose a southerly route. He decided to follow the
better weather and fly routes he is very familiar with from multiple
competition tasks he has flown in this region. It worked! He has
over-taken a number of pilots who stuck to the more direct course
line. He is currently south of TP 6. The remainder of the gaggle are
within reach of the turn point and we expect Keller, Koren, Bramfitt,
Coconea and Vuirpillot to reach it soon. Chsing this group hard are
Williams and Cannell.
Amazing progress was made by Linde, Ramos and Kernstein. All started
around/before TP4 and flew across the main spine of the Pyrenees.
Kernstock took off very late and made excellent progress. Linde,
Ramos, Veiga and Kernstock are all close to TP5 now.
Unfortunately, Centa had an incident which hurt his hand. this
impeded his flying yesterday, but be is currently hiking and still in
the race. Gold was finally able to fly… tagging TP 4 he flew in the
direction of TP5. His tracker is not currently transmitting, so we
can’t bring you news of his exact location. Andrews and Shapiro both
hiked up Turbon (TP4) and camped overnight to make the most of an
early flight. Umbricht and his whole team are still sick with food
poisoning. They took a day off to try to recover and hope to be able
to make progress on the final day of the race.
Mario Moreno’s race can be summed up in 5 words: tummy, tree,
torrent, technical (issues) and thunderstorms. He has been battling
with gastroenteritis, car problems and thunderstorms. He landed in a
tree and Angel, his supporter, had to cross a ford to assist him.
After a three hour tree rescue (he was unharmed), they tried to
recross the ford. It was now a fast-flowing river! Stranded on the
other side they had to overnight on the far side and were towed out
by a friendly local. Despite all their hardships, Mario is showing
massive determination to complete the race and fly far today. A true
competitor! Lukas Thoeni is also digging deep. He has walked more
than 60km each day the last couple of days and is determined to get
to TP4 and beyond. Good luck to all!
The forecast is excellent for the final day and we should see lots of
action. And the forecast is for cloudbase up to 4000m – not lower as
our roving reporter Judith Mole mistakenly said in the update video. Sorry!
