Monday 30 May: Report by Craig Morgan
Task 2: 98 km
So here I sit in the middle of the afternoon, bollock naked after a refreshing shower to wash away the filth of my performance today !!!
Nobody’s about in the town so you can probably figure out what I’ve managed to do in today’s task. And NO, I didn’t win it by a country mile.
The task-setters had excelled themselves today with a blat around the valley to start, a lunge onto the big back ridge which is a smidge more boisterous and then ( had I made it ) a necky glide along the spineback ridge past the daunting ‘Krn’ mountain. Then finished off with a couple more ballsy into-wind glides. A peach of a task with decision making, ballsy ridge running, climbing and some luck required to make it interesting ……
All went well in the early section, with Chris Harland leading and choosing as he does the most expedient lines. I joined in the fun and games up front with Czech Rasta man Martin Orlik, who was immediately appointed as official guide cos he knows the place, ain’t scared and is a pusher !!
Me and Chris have to push this week as the R11s seem to have the legs on us and ” by ‘eck we wuz giving it sum wellie” early on. We’d creamed up from the big ridge behind and were nicely stretching the field when we were presented with our next route choice. Neil Roberts had ominously appeared on our shoulders as we procrastinated somewhat over our choice, but Chris went for it and took the brave route straight at the windy ridge. I’d tried to top up but then went for it as Chris was getting away.
It’s an awful feeling as you glider drops to single digit ground speed and starts yawing in the leeside snot. Chris was the first to bail, closely followed by me, and we scurried back to ‘The Tits’ where that canny git Roberts sat with the hand brake on some 500 metres above us. We’d blown it, and it took us 20 minutes to get any decent altitude back by which time the pilots who’d sat back and observed were in stratosphere and cruising off into the distance. That’s another galling feeling.
I’m fairly sure Chris took another pop at rounding the wind-scoured shoulder and was defeated again. I even saw Wattsie beneath me doing the ‘soar of shame’, and plenty of other pilots joined us after making the same failure. I only know one way to race and before long I was having another stab at rounding the windy crux via a different route. Useless. And back I went for my third dose of medicine, by which time I felt like a right chump. Climbing again I saw the leaders pushing for the farthest turnpoint some 15 kilometres away.
As I took my third attempt to get round the shoulder I actually heard myself muttering “you’ve gone too early son- it’s gonna get sporty”. And sporty it got !!! I shan’t bore you with the details, but suffice to say I took an early bath. It’s at times like this that I seriously question my m.o. I’ve gone past booting my helmet round the landing field (as my leg has come off once or twice in so doing), but the bile rising in my stomach still confirms my uber competitive nature and disgust at bombing out.
The leaders were over-flying me now on their return, some 30km further along the route.
So here I sit dejectedly pondering my slide from hero to zero once again, and who should join me but my snoring, farting proud new father of a bessy mate – the Hymanator. He’d heroically given up again in favour of a pint and is rapidly slipping down the ‘Hard Man’ stakes.
News hot off the press however, is that Neil Roberts, red hot favourite for the comp and British title, had landed early too. Shortly before landing he was heard screaming “level three, level three” (stop the task) down the safety channel! Ever the sportsman. The task continued ……
As I sign off the winners are just blasting into the goal field now. Have any of the Brit hopefuls dealt Mr. Roberts a knockout blow ? I don’t know, but if you’re live tracking , you’ll probably know before me as I’m off for a pint with ‘my man’.
Craig
Follow the action from the 2011 British Paragliding Open in Slovenia
Mark Hayman and Craig Morgan
Follow their daily XCmag.com blogs here
Paragliding Comps UK
Full results, live tracking and task reports are here
Slovenian Paragliding Open
The competition website is at www.slovenia-pgopen.com
