Sorry to be so tardy in my reporting, we had a long day yesterday and I was simply tired… It is now almost 8 o’clock AM here, the sun is peeping over the hills over yonder and we’re almost ready to go up to launch for the last task of this 2009 Worlds event.

Another long task today, using some of the same turnpoints as previous days but in a different order. The day was very different to the previous ones in that the wind was stronger and from the North, and the cloud base was also higher, up to around 3800m.

Yesterday’s blog entry was headed, ”if only it were always this easy”, and today I can ascertain that this is not the case. We had a 6km exit cylinder around the launch, and there was great cloud suck up until around 5 minutes before the start gate opening – then it died on me, and [...]

Some 97km race to goal today, with a 1km exit cylinder around B03, the little volcano SE of launch. Not many clouds today, so the start gate waiting was less stressful, with less people suffering reduced visibility. After the start we had to come back to the piano landing, then straight out into the flats [...]

The smell of dope in the morning. Or, as it were, in the evening…Am writing this out on the little terrace in front of our team apartment. On the terrace below is the landlord and his police-officer friend, sharing a doobie, and the smell is pleasantly wafting up my way so I can pretend that [...]

What a day (or did I say that yesterday???) Today was the best flying day we have had so far, with real thermals originating from real thermal sources, nice cu’s popping overhead and not QUITE as dense airspace as yesterday.

The organisers have gotten their act together today – we’ve been issued maps with turnpoints on them, and I now have a list of the turnpoints too so I can tell you guys where we have been! Task was 94km around the launch, with a 2km entry cylinder around Maguey and the Maguey turnpoint after [...]

The task setters had a challenge up their sleeves today – 91.7km of bumpy racing with 3 turnpoints and a 6km exit cylinder around the Penon launch. I had something of an epic today, was all lined up to launch in the ”free for all” 10 minutes window right after open window, inflated the first [...]

So, today being the 25th we finally got the first task off our minds, and what a task it was. We’ve cleverly managed to put Ronny on the task committee, he’s likely to be one of the foreigners who knows this place best, and he’s always good for a dose of reason when everybody else [...]

Hi All (all two??) I have been offline for a bit, busy getting my arse over here and getting installed. Flight went well in spite of two gliders and umpteen t-shirts for the team, and in the end I just got in a cab at the airport (happened to be a Suburban, full-size SUV) and [...]

I’m still trying frantically to get things ready for my being away from the family for more than 2 weeks – today that involved getting the dinghy sorted and out of the way (have been doing repairs, and it has been sitting in a very inconvenient place for the duration) and having the brakes on [...]

Well we’d better get started on this subject hadn’t we? Like, set up a list of bookie’s favourites so that everyone can laugh afterwards at my complete ignorance… I’ll be listing some of the obvious, and some of the less obvious, here below. If you’re not mentioned it is probably my bad judgement – I [...]

Hi there, my name is Mads Syndergaard. I’ve been doing paragliding comps for almost as long as Patrick Berod, and I have volunteered to blog for XC Mag with my perspective on the upcoming Worlds event in Valle de Bravo, Mexico. My view on things differs from, say, Mark Hayman’s in that, aside from representing [...]