In the aftermath of the 2011 Paragliding World Championships being cancelled Mads Syndergaard comments on where things went wrong and how to right them

The morning meeting is just over, and as expected most teams were for continuing the event.

Mads Syndergaard reports from Piedrahita, where two pilots died during task 2 on Wednesday 6 July

Keen readers will have worked out that I didn’t make goal today, writes Mads Syndergaard

Mads Syndergaard reports from the test task at the the Worlds

Mads Syndergaard keeps cool at the four-hour check in – first task is today

The Paragliding World Championships start in Piedrahita in two days time. Mads Syndergaard is making his way to Spain, and deliberating the concept of ‘more safety’ in paragliding competitions.

The wonderfully named ‘Flying Rags for Glory: the A-Z of competition paragliding’ hit the shops at the beginning of the month and is the current best selling item at XCShop.com. Mads’ Syndergaard’s exhaustive work is a first of its kind. Normally competitions have been relegated to a sub-section of general flying books, when in truth, [...]

Last night got pretty hectic, what with packing, showering and eating all at once, then waiting for Elena and Pal to come back from their cool long flights.

TODAY was another odd XCT day in that the first half was spent going to the mayor’s office to have tea with him and smalltalk in his downtown office

FINALLY I got to make a really nice flight in Turkey It wasn’t super far, it didn’t take forever, and it wasn’t even particularly scary – it was just a nice, quite difficult flight with a few low saves, and an efficient public transport retrieve thanks to the everpresent SUPER friendly locals that make Turkey special.

Saturday was the last day in Karaman, and Trias outflew everyone to land in Cappadocia. The rest of the group went there by bus the following day en route for the next stop, Beysehir.

Day 5 of XCTurkey saw some long flights at last, but not for everyone

XCTukey day 4, parawaiting and sightseeing.

Mads Syndergaard and the other XCTurkey competitiors find day 3 inverted and difficult, another 30km day.

Mads Syndergaard reports back on day 2 of XCTurkey.

Yesterday and a fair bit of today (until 6am) was spent travelling, from Husby via Copenhagen to Istanbul and on to Antalya. The stopover in Istanbul was fun; I ran into some 10 old friends in the gate, all Superfinal pilots heading for Denizli, I wanted sooo hard to come with them…

Mads packs his UP Trango XC and what little else the airline baggage allowances permit, ready to go off to the XCTurkey cup.

Mads Syndergaard is going to the XC Turkey Paragliding Cup this month, and will be sending us regular updates as the event unfolds.

Today turned out to be exceedingly stable and totally blue, and the 87 km task all around the local area was possibly a bit optimistic. As it turned out there was an accident after a few hours, and the task was stopped/cancelled. This means that yesterdays result is now the official end of the event, [...]