NOVA Red Bull X-Alps Blog: TUE 22.06.2021

In general, the stage from Achental to Lermoos is a difficult one. I live in Chiemgau (today Till Gottbrath writes) and the crossing of the Inntal alone is just not an easy task! It is difficult to find connecting thermals on the west side. And if you do find one, there is no route that is obvious because of its topography. In addition, there are sometimes few or no landing sites. 
No wonder that the athletes' tracks spread out from north to south: 

• The northern route via Schliersee, Tegernsee, the Weißachtal and on through the Karwendel.
• The central route past the Sudelfeld ski area and the Vorderes Sonnwendjoch, the Guffert and then through into the Karwendel. 
• Then all the way south along the north side of the Inntal.
• And finally a combination of the above options.

The supplement from the evening before - and it's important!
Approx. 8 pm: Magic Move by Chrigel Maurer! 
The leading pack with Paul Guschlbauer, Aaron Durogati, Patrick von Känel and Chrigel is very close together. But Chrigel lets himself be pushed a little further south after crossing the Inntal. At an inconspicuous peak with the somehow funny name ‘Dümpfel’, he can gain some altitude and shortly afterwards land quite high at Wendelstejn. So he could start there at the summit and, after crossing the valley to the south, thermal up in the evening at 8.15 p.m. at the Heißenplatte (`hot plate’ – nomen est omen for late thermals???). And then he flew one of his magic lines: without losing much altitude he continued towards Tegernsee. Gained altitude at the Baumgartenschneid. That's enough to cross to Wallberg, where it goes up again (20:38)!
 

Meanwhile, his closest pursuers with Paul, Patrick and Aaron - launch together on Schweinsberg (a somewhat lower peak west of Wendelstein, meaning “Pigs Peak”) and also traverse to Heißenplatte. But the plate has cooled down in the meantime. And while Chrigel flies a few more kilometres up the Weißachtal to the Achenpass, the other three have to land at Neuhaus. So there it is, the lead. The great master has struck again.
At the back of the field, Russian Andrei Mashak pulled his Night Pass to escape elimination, but he couldn't make up relevant ground, so he will be the first pilot to be "eliminated". Personally I think this is a pity. What do you think? Shouldn't all athletes be allowed to compete as long as they can and want to?
 

Race Day 3 (Tuesday 22.6.2021): 
The tried and tested X-Alps veterans Gavin McGlurg (USA 1) and Nick Neynens (NZL 1) are surprisingly very far behind, but could make up ground, as could Michel Lacher (GER 3). But they all have to keep up their speed…
In the midfield there are some examples of when hiking makes sense and when it doesn't: The Pole Michael Gierlach hiked in a large arc northwards around Kampenwand, climbed the Hochries and flew from there over Kranzhorn to traverse the River Inn Valley. Well done. And then he unpacked a stunning flight: Michael took off from Brünnstein (Inntal) and flew to the Eibsee (a lake near Garmisch). pushing himself up from 14th to 10th place.

The leading group
Contrary to what many expected, Chrigel was not able to break away. He had to land back in several times in the Karwendel mountains because he did not gain enough height to fly away. Behind him, his pursuers Aaron, Patrick and – new in that group – Benoit Outters were able to make up ground. Almost simultaneously, they all took off on the south side of the Grubigstein in the late afternoon – protected from the north wind in the lee.
Meanwhile, more and more clouds moved in from the southwest, making it increasingly difficult to keep up for the pilots a bit further back. The base dropped to below 2000 metres.
 

Black day for NOVA
Theo de Blic started the day with a real test of patience at the Wilder Kaiser: he didn't have to land again, but also didn't thermal or soar up properly for a long time. So his track looked like a large portion of Spaghetti on the map. At some point the altitude was enough and he jumped north to the Zahmer Kaiser, where patience test no. 2 awaited him, and drawing another ball of wool into the live tracking... After this promising start, however, he did not make relevant progress in the course of the day and ticked off the Achental turnpoint on foot.

Nick Donini made a rather unwise tactical decision last night: instead of walking as far as possible towards Marquartstein like the pilots in front of him, he climbed up to the Exenberg this morning (the take-off is also known as Taubensee; directly north of Kössen). But there were no thermals in the morning, so he could only glide down to just before the glider airfield in Unterwössen. After that he took the Achental turning point on foot. Little good done, time lost.

Ken Oguma had a very bad day! In the morning, things were going great both tactically and aeronautically! He started quite early at the Hochplatte, patiently gained metre by metre and made his way towards Lermoos. On the way he was able to pass Steve Bramfitt, Cody Mittanck, Eduardo Garza and his compatriot Kaoru Ogisawa. But then he made a fatal mistake. He landed north of the Sudelfeld road in order to climb Wildalpjoch from there. There he took off northwards into the now very strong Bavarian Wind. Ken continued to soar westwards past Wendelstein & Co. At some point he decided to change the valley side to the south – and was “eaten” by the Monsterlee behind the whole massif. With an extreme sink rate, he literally fell from the sky between Bayrischzell and Fischbachau and caught a tree when landing. The good thing is: Ken only sustained minor injuries and is receiving medical attention at the hospital in Agatharied. His team and Toni Bender are with him and there is no reason to worry. But most likely the race is over for the likeable Japanese.

That's it for today. Greetings from Aschau
Till Gottbrath

Here you can watch the video of day 3. You can also find more of our current clips on the Facebook playlist.

PS: Thanks for the pictures to NOVA Media Team & Felix Steinmaßl