Hofer is now catching Maurer
Yesterday, day seven of the race, brought some glimmer of the 2009 Red Bull X-Alps being not just a one man race, and perhaps at least becoming a two man battle, when Maurer’s southerly route and Hofer’s more northern one came head to head at the Matterhorn turnpoint. Maurer was trapped on the south face of the mountain and had to soar up and land in the glaciers, meet his supporter, don crampons and trek across the high glaciers.
This gave Hofer, who was now in the long straight Wallis valley, a chance to eat into Maurer’s lead. Hofer is now in the Zermatt valley, climbing up on to the long east face that leads to the Matterhorn with the intention of flying to the turnpoint and back out. Maurer is already climbing up on to the sunny south facing side of the Wallis valley, which will give him an easy run in to France and round Mt Blanc. The Red Bull X-Alps website now shows then as only 4 km apart. In reality Maurer still has about 65 km lead on Hofer because he has the Matterhorn in the bag, however, much depends on how much distance Hofer, flying an east face, can cover before Maurer gets airborne on the slower heating southern faces.
175 km behind Maurer is the second gaggle led by Heli Eichholzer. Close by is Russia’s Evgeny Gryaznov, Britain’s Aiden Toase, American Honza Rejmanek and 2007 Red Bull X-Alps’ ‘fastest man to Monaco’ Swiss star Martin Muller. All are climbing high in the mountains looking to put in some serious flights to try and break free of their pack. Tomo Coconea has dropped even further behind the group.
Lloyd Pennicuik (AUS) now battling against elimination
Today there’ll be another elimination. It looks set to be either Australia’s Lloyd Pennicuik or Slovakia’s Peter Vrabec who are currently still east of the Trento valley and struggling along only 7 km apart.
Raul Penso (VEN) retires
Venezuelan hopeful Raul Penso retired yesterday bringing the number of athletes still competing down to 23 from the initial 30.
With high pressure conditions forecast for the next few days we can expect to see some serious distances flown with a major battle between two of paragliding’s legend taking place for the lead of the race.
Next news Monday morning.
More news and live tracking on www.redbullxalps.com
