Chrigel Maurer is our sport’s best and most complete pilot, but as he approaches his ninth Red Bull X-Alps not all the cards fall in his favour. At 42 he is now the oldest pilot in the race, where the average age is a decade younger, at 32. There are a dozen pilots in the twenties; only two others are in their 40s. Chrigel has nothing to prove, but he as he says, if he comes anything but first, even second, then for him that will go down as his “worst ever X-Alps.”
Famously, Chrigel has won the X-Alps eight times, but he had a long paragliding career before he ever stepped foot into the X-Alps arena. A pilot from a young age he excelled in classic XC competition when still a teenager and went on to become Swiss Champion multiple times, European Champion, and win the Paragliding World Cup three...
