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Camila Antonorsi flew 120 km to set a new Venezuelan women’s distance record

Camila Antonorsi. Photograph: Camila Antonorsi collection

I’m 28 and have been flying since I was 17

I’ve been competing internationally for the last two years at competitions like La Monarca 2008 where I was second woman, the pre-Worlds in Mexico (fourth) and World Cup in Brazil this year (second). Before the record my personal best was 90 km at the pre-Worlds in Valle de Bravo.

The day of the record looked amazing…

And the clouds were high and very well formed. But once I hit the sky I realised conditions weren’t as good as I expected. Thermals were pretty soft and it took a long time to get to the clouds. Things got better when I hit the flats. At the beginning I was sort of bumping slowly down. But in the flats the wind stopped breaking up the thermals and things improved.

Camila Antonorsi. Photograph: Camila Antonorsi collection

There were five of us at the start

Two of them made it way high a lot faster than the rest of us and were able to head off right away. For the first 20 km I was flying with Marcos del Rio, an Argentinean friend, but he didn’t have much luck. In the end it was just Micky and me.

I was anxious

Because I was alone for the first 15 – 20 km, I was flying an unknown place, and I basically had no clue where I should be going. But once I got in touch with Alex Popow, who had been there before, he guided me so I got my confidence back and starting to fly at a better pace. Thermals were pretty strong but luckily I had the wind at my back so it helped.

Micky didn’t sound that optimistic

Later in the flight I had already flown south towards Micky when he told me, and I could see, a huge blue hole between where I was and where he was. So I had to turn west, which wasn’t that appealing either. But that was when I realised I could probably reach the record.

Camila Antonorsi. Photograph: Camila Antonorsi collection

There were no scary moments

The only hard decision to be made was around 100 km, where the only landing looked tricky and narrow – and I was certainly not that high. It wasn’t a scary situation, however if I had had to land there it probably would have been a bit critical.

I didn’t know when I hit 100 km

I’d forgotten to erase the last track on my GPS so I didn’t know exactly how far I’d flown. Over the radio I spoke to the people who were driving and asked them to let me know the start coordinates so I could figure out how far I’d gone. I discovered I was at 108 km and I had created the new women’s record!

I rang everyone immediately!

The first thing that came to my mind was to call my husband. I took the cellphone from my pocket and sent a message to him and to my best friend Raul saying I had reached the record and I was going for more

I pretended I was over the sea so I wouldn’t come down

From 100 km landings were difficult to find and I had to pass over a huge yard full of ‘cijuis’, a Venezuelan tree well known for being short but full of thorns. I made myself believe I was flying over water and that I had to stay high so I didn’t drown! A little before 120 km the day wasn’t as good as it started so I decided to take the safest way out and make a good landing where I could.

I landed next to the car

Right next to the main highway in a village called Kilometre 52. While coming down I could see the retrieve car right underneath me getting ready to celebrate with me. I was so happy with my flight!

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This entry was posted on Friday, September 11th, 2009 at 8:49 am and is filed under Articles, Features. You can follow any comments on this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site.