RSSHEADLINES SKYSPORTS

Again, not exactly days of glory for our team. The tasks were long, 112 and 140km, and quite some guys made goal. Roland and Achim got there two days ago, and Roland was the only guy from Team D in goal yesterday. Christian and Antoine won those days.
On the flight two days ago, I experienced a really strong head wind and was supercareful to not get myself into areas without safe landing options. After trying three times to head towards the 2rd turnpoint and kind of hitting against a rubber wall every time, I turned around and chose the huge landing field at "Rancho", the horse race track. The wind is very switchy, and I experienced my longest ground effect ever, about 700m... a good landing in the end, but the car could not get into the field. Luckily Kasper, the Swiss team driver, found a horse and carried my harness out, while Uli and Brenda helped with my glider.
When Jörg, Gerd and Achim landed inside the race track yesterday to be closer to the road, they said it was really bad - head wind switching to tail wind, muddy, and some "Wuppdidus" (Jörg) to jump over, which would have almost broken Suans foot, as you can´t run across those solid hills and gaps.
You can see in the "0"s of the result list that there has been quite some damage so far. A broken foot and a broken arm were the worst injuries, then several sprains and bruises, and broken gliders. I don´t want to find an excuse why I am flying like a dead kangaroo at the moment (lots of wind shears cut of the small, bumpy thermals so you spend hours without being able to turn a full circle in climb) - Im just not willing to take any risks over here, as the consequences could be a bit more dramatic than in many other places I´ve flown.
The life tracking must be fun to watch for you guys at home, for us it is not easy, because the large instruments are designed for paragliding. I couldnt make a mount that would fit the tracker to put it on the upright, so I have to stick it into my harness. About a minute after landing, a loud, very annoying alarm goes off, requesting the pilot to press the button that he is ok. Easy for pg pilots who have the instrument in front of them, but hard for us, because at that time we are usually still busy trying to struggle the glider out of a field, out of the landing approach of another glider, or turning it out of the wind etc.
We hope day 6 will bring us higher altitude and hopefully our whole team to goal!