PWC Loma Bola: Task 6

Today was the final task and day of the PWC here in Loma Bola so we could only hope for a final day where we could all make goal one last time.

The day very much started like the previous two, with nice blue skies and conditions looking promising. 

After a fantastic and fun week of racing the atmosphere on launch today was full of energy, excitement and lots of pilots hoping to snag a space in the superfinal.

I had already decided that today I would fly conservative and not take any risks in order to retain my place in the top 15 and qualify for the super final in Brazil this March.

The task was set and we were going to be flying up and down the ridge here in Loma Bola touching a few turn points, before landing out in the official LZ which is nice and close to the town and BBQ later.

Today wasn’t the most exciting day for me in terms of giving you a blog that will have you on your toes. 

I pretty much flew behind the lead gaggle the whole race and made sure to do high on each glide and not risk a move that would have me sink out or lose time and lead points. 

After the second turn point the conditions had changed drastically in a very short amount of time. A storm had developed back in the Andes and the clouds from the storm cell completely covered the whole area and all the flying was shut down. The leaders landed a few km from end of speed and everyone else somewhere along the course. Today would be about distance and lead points to score well as no one made goal.

Despite no one making goal on the last day there was a great atmosphere at the awards BBQ later on and I was stoked to have come 13th overall, securing my place in the super final! 

The week of flying was a really interesting one with different conditions everyday, and each of the days technical for different reasons. 

I had been training in slow conditions so this was a good opportunity for me to put that training into practise in a comp but even these were lighter than I could ever have expected.

I feel like I really got good at flying in light conditions which was a huge accomplishment, as well being able to slow down and fly conservative to keep my position for the super final on the last day, I’ve always been one for flying with lots of speed.

I was very happy with what I focused on in my training and now to be able to compete in what has been best competition yet, I really have this sense of all my training coming together.

An other lesson I learnt is that pushing at the front doesn’t always win you tasks, holding back and watching the first guys go can get you into the lead as you can see where the best lines and opportunity to push are but learn from their mistakes do you succeed when you do it - a bit like a game of cat and mouse.

Finally, I learnt that Argentinians will eat dinner at midnight every night and then party and still fly like champs the next day! Not sure I’ll be joining them with that theory of party hard, fly harder but it was fun.

Now, I’m very excited to go on the next adventure in Santiago for the Pre-World Cup. It’s going to be much stronger flying conditions and my kind of racing so I’m looking forward to see what sort of tasks we will have there. 

It was very nice to see all the people I had met around the world in racing this year and get back together in the World Cup here in Argentina!