02 März 2014

Valle Pre Worlds Day 1: 125km around 4 turnpoints


About 78 pilots started into the first task of the pre worlds yesterday, amongst them 5 women: Kathleen Rigg (GB), Francoise Dieuzede (FR), Sasha Serebrennikova (RU), Claudia Mejia (CO) and me. Jamie and Linda (US) are here, but not competing. Almost the full Italian world champion team is here, and they showed us their skill yesterday – Christian Ciech won the day by an incredible 18 minutes on the 2nd pilot!
Also the French have their top team pilots here, so do the Swiss. Must be about 45 pilots from the top 100 in the world!
The task started at 13.15, as the finish cut off is already at 17.15 to allow for a retrieval in daylight. We flew in blue conditions with the highest base at around 4100m close to the Nevado volcano. Many pilots have trouble adjusting to the height, they don´t sleep all that well, a few got sick. The strong climbs and sinks also create a turbulence that can be quite overwhelming for flatland pilots.
I flew a lot of the course on my own and really enjoyed the nice views. Flying above the Monarch butterflies was amazing! I found a nice thermal just above the millions of butterflies on the mountain. I was stoked to get to goal, even if I didnt have the fastest of times. About 25 pilots were there already, a few came in after me. Gerd and Jörg from my team were in goal, so we did score well for the team results!
Going back to Valle, it was the usual weekend chaos in the village – just too many cars and people everywhere, as Valle de Bravo is a very popular place for a trip away from Mexico city. Clean air, pretty views, nice craft shops.
Today we might go for a goal close to Toluca, up on the high plains. That means we will land at 2500m above sea level, higher than we took off from (2300m)!
No results up yet.

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