Day 3, Tuesday 22 June, began with Chrigel Maurer (SUI1) out front by 20km, and finished with him and fellow Swiss Patrick Von Känel (SUI2) joint leaders, and making good progress towards turnpoint 6, Säntis. Their home country of Switzerland is calling.
Conditions were flyable but difficult, with weak thermals early on, storms and strong winds later. In order to complete the 1238km distance in 12 days, athletes would need to make 103km progress each day. Chrigel was right on target, closing Day 3 110km nearer to the finish than he had started it.
Pilots had to land on the Zugspitze to sign the board at TP5. Chrigel was first, very closely followed by Patrick. Benoît Outters arrived in third. He’d been flying with a slightly damaged glider after snagging it on launch, repaired with “one of my sponsor’s stickers!” There were some very impressively fast turnarounds at this turnpoint, with one pilot being filmed landing, signing and launching again within the space of a minute. Worthy of a Formula One pitstop!
The forecast overdevelopment arrived on cue, and pilots reported very strong and turbulent conditions in the afternoon around Lermoos.
When the race leaders reached the top of the Grubigsteinbahnen, the main mountain of the Lermoos-Tiroler Zugspitz Arena, conditions had deteriorated to the point that Chrigel said launching would not be possible. A fortunate break in the clouds did allow launching, and the leaders were rewarded with a better than expected flight.
The last few hours of the X-Alps day were a tale of strong winds, rain and thunderstorms, with short hop flights the most that were possible.
Sadly, Ken Oguma (JPN2) had a mishap during the afternoon and injured his foot which meant he had to pull out of the race, and back-marker Andrei Mashak (RUS), who was also struggling with a sore leg, was making very slow progress. He knew he had a matter of hours before he would be the first athlete to be eliminated at 6am on Day 4. He had already used his night pass, so had no more cards to play. His race was destined to finish near Zell am See.
By the end of Day 3, everyone who was still in the race had made it past TP4, Chiemgau Achental, and no one had pulled a night pass so they all hunkered down out of the storms for some well-earned rest.
The top three positions at close-of-play Tuesday were:
- Chrigel Maurer (SUI1), 859.4km
=1 Patrick Von Kännel (SUI2), 859.4km - Benoît Outters (FRA2), 865.4km
Follow the live tracking here.
