I read recently that the French competition ace Honorin Hamard has been on the podium in slightly over 40% of the races he has competed in. This is an astonishing statistic. Honorin, like Chrigel, operates at a level most of us will never come close to.
Race-to-goal competitions are typically seven day affairs in which, at the World Cup level, the difference between a task win and 30th place can be under two minutes. At the end of the week you might have less than 20 points separating first place and 10th. That’s equivalent to maybe two minutes combined between the winner and 10th place over seven days while flying 750km or more of cross country!
I’d hazard an educated guess that the difference in technical skills among the pilots at a World Cup between the top 70 ranked pilots is no more than 3%. They climb much the same. They glide much the same. They all have similar equipment, they share similar hours in the saddle, they have similar strategies, and they see the sky in...
