Hi there, everybody. Welcome to another episode of the Cloudbase Mayhem. Got kind of a special show for you today. If you're interested in the Red Bull X-Alps, if you're not, this is maybe one you can skip. But a lot of the fans have been asking about kind of a lot of the behind-the-scenes stuff that's hard to find out as a fan, just via live tracking or in the magazine articles and that kind of thing, like how they choose the route and how athletes are chosen and how many apply and a whole bunch of stuff behind the scenes, cloud flying and team flying and team size and night pass and a bunch of stuff. So some of these questions are my own. As an athlete, I've done it twice that I wanted to know. Some of them are from my team, Bruce and Ben, and a lot of them are from you.
So we just kind of went through it. And yeah, we covered pretty much everything that you had in there. A lot of the logistics, the route stuff's pretty fascinating. So if you're interested in the X-Alps or interested in competing in the X-Alps, you haven't done it and want to know better about how to get in and how they choose, then this is the show for you. So please enjoy this conversation with Christoph Weber, the race director of the Red Bull X-Alps, quote-unquote, the hardest adventure race on Earth.
Christoph, we have been trying to do this for quite some time. Excited that we've both been traveling and doing things that have kept us away from this. But thank you so much. Sounds like you guys are having a really good time. A really good winter, finally, in Europe. We're having no winter here in the U.S., so things have switched a little bit. I understand you just got back from a nice snowy tandem. But welcome to the mayhem, and I'm excited to ask you some questions about the X-Alps.
Yeah, hello, Kevin. Happy to be there, and happy to be on the show. So I'm curious about your questions.
Yeah, so a lot of these came in, and we'll just keep everything anonymous. But a lot of these. A lot of these questions came in. I put out that I was going to be talking to you a while back. So a lot of them came through Facebook, and a few on Instagram, and a bunch in emails. So in no particular order, I'll try to just take us through this, and just give us as much as you're comfortable giving. We don't expect you to give away all the secrets of the X-Alps, but a lot of people are really curious about the behind the scenes. And why don't we start off with just your position, you're obviously kind of the front man for all of us, for the athletes. You're in charge of us. You're the race director, so people can think of you as the guy that is managing a PWC.
You're the guy that's making sure everybody's safe. And so why don't you tell us a little bit about how that happened, how you became the race director for the X-Alps, and what it means to be the race director of the X-Alps.
Yeah, let's maybe start with what it means. Yeah. So for me, it means that I'm a kind of judge. I set up the rules with all the team. And afterwards, while the competition is running, I'm the one who has to have the main eye on the rules and on the behavior of the athletes or of the teams that everybody feels fills these rules. And that's what... My duty is on this race. And of course, there are a lot of rules which are not easy to being applied during the race because the race has its own dynamic.
Yeah, we always have to stay on the side of the athletes. But it should be fair to everybody what we do. So that's the difficult part of it. And yeah, how I became the race director was just that I was getting in touch with Hannes Arsch and with the team of X-Alps. I think it was during X-Alps 2009. And yeah, getting more and more in touch with them, they asked me if I could make this race director on the race.
Was Hannes the race director before?
No, no. It was Cox who was the race director before. Hannes was only the... Well, why tell it only? But he was the mastermind. So he was the inventor of the race. But Steve Cox was the race director before me.
And tell me a little bit about the... So before we started recording, you said that we're not going to go into the budget. We're not going to go into the budget at all because you're not familiar with it. You don't know what it is. A lot of people were interested in that. And I'm sure it's massive. But what about some of the other logistics? Like how much staff is required to run the event? Is it full time? When it ended this summer, are there people that are immediately working on the 2019 event? Or is there a year off? What does the staff look like? What do the resources look like?
I mean, for me, for example, together with maybe five or six other people, the race never ends. So when the race ends, we maybe have one week off and then we already start putting together how things were running on the last race and what should be improved for the next race. And then already the organization of the next race is starting. So I would say it's around five. Or six people, which are totally involved all the time with the race. For me, it's not a full time job. Of course not. But I always have a meeting again with all these people and talking about things which need to be done on the schedule.
And so we are involved with this all the time. And during the race, which is around three weeks, then it's a total full time. It's a full time job for everybody who is involved with this.
It's a question of who you all count to the staff, but then it's for sure around 30, 40 people which are in this stuff.
And how much of that is Zoom and how much of that is Red Bull? In my experience, there haven't been many Red Bull employees really involved with this. Is that right? Is it mostly Zoom that runs the event?
Yeah, yeah. That's totally right. That's one thing people often mix up. Red Bull is just a sponsor of the race. And it's the most important sponsor of course. But the one who is running this race is Zoom.
And so can we credit that mostly to Hannes and Ulrich?
Yeah, yeah. Okay. They are the two which were putting life into this event and inventing it and making it to what it is now.
So I can't wait to ask you about the route. And you've already mentioned it a couple of times and the team involved in that, which I wasn't aware of. I didn't know it was a team. But before we get to that, how is the race in your eyes? I mean it sounds like you were involved full time in a sense from 2009 on. But I know you've been a fan since the beginning and followed it from the beginning. What are the major changes and how has it evolved over time since 2003?
Yeah, this has a lot of sides where you see that it was evolving into very much better performance on side of the equipment, on side of the athletes, on side of the teams. Everybody is preparing himself much better thinking about routes and about flying passes and walking passes. All this was pushed much more and the equipment was making big, big steps in getting lighter and getting more performance on this lightness.
Yeah, it's a lot. I mean you know it best. You were taking part. How much work it is to make this preparation and how much brain power you are putting in it and how much plans you are making, how to get to a solution on difficult parts of the route and all this. There's so much and there's so much dynamic also in the team, which is making life not always easier for the teams.
What about from your side or from the organizational side? There have also been some pretty big changes from that. I know that one of the beautiful things that I think still drives the race is Hannes' kind of original goal that there weren't a lot of rules. It was a race that started in Salzburg and ended in Monaco.
But over the years they have changed some things. They used to be able to go all night, every night. And then now there's the night pass which I'm going to get into here a little bit later. But what about stuff like that? Were those responses to safety or were those responses to viewers or sponsors or something else?
I mean getting onto this night break which you have mandatory at the moment, this is due to safety. And it's not due to the safety of the really good teams. I don't care or I'm not so afraid that the teams on the first places will deal with their capacities in a good way. It's more to put safety in the teams in the backfield which sometimes just push too hard and go too much over their limits and run into really dangerous situations where we must react in a way.
And so that's the way how we reacted that we made this rule that you have to have a break in the night.
Okay. So that's a perfect segue into that's a great strategy question and just in terms of you know, I think it's, you're absolutely right. The folks in the back, you know, have to keep trying harder and harder to pull up but they're getting less and less rest and it's almost working against them which is often what I think what happens with the night pass as well. But we'll get to the night pass but let's, before we do, I want to talk about the route. How is it decided, you know, from the fan and athlete perspective it always just seems like, you know, the main thing is that it gets longer and harder with each addition. But tell me how you guys tackle that and who is that team?
Yeah, about this route, this inner team, I was telling you it's, are these five people working all the time on it? Yeah, about the route, there are some points which are quite fixed because of sponsors and one question you also have in your mind, I guess, is why always we need to go to Monaco and yeah, this is just something Red Bull wants to have it like this and as Red Bull is the main sponsor, we cannot kick it out and not make it. And also for our other turn points, sometimes we have contracts with the turn points, like for example, with Geisberg or with Aschau last time.
And that's also the point why we like to pass there and why we like to have the turn point there. But also why we have to like signboard there on the ground where the athletes pass by. And the rest of the route is, you know, just set up in a way that it should be exciting and it should be demanding. And it should have a length around 1000 kilometers.
Would it ever go the opposite way?
No. At the moment, I'm quite sure that it's will not be possible like this because for us, it's much easier. You know, this preparation week we have in the first week, it's much easier to have it there in Fuschel because we have all the buildings there and all the logistics which are situated there. So it's much easier to make it that way.
Yeah, I didn't think about that. God, I mean, ending in Monaco is bad enough, but starting in Monaco would just be hell. Yeah, yeah. You know how I feel about Monaco, but holy cow. It
would be really bad to walk away from the sea. It's much nicer to fly down there. To the sea and land there.
That's absolutely true. Okay, next big question that I know a lot of people are interested in. How are the 32 athletes decided? And again, I don't expect you to give all your secrets away, but I think it's really mysterious. I can tell the listeners there's a big application we have to fill in that starts July 1st, the year before. But behind that, there's a big cape and we don't really know what goes on beyond that. So the more transparency you can give us there, Christoph, the better. I think mostly people are also very curious about minimum qualifications, but what are you looking for when you decide that?
Yeah, I mean, we get in these applications of the athletes or of the teams, and then we check out everybody who was sending in this application. Yeah, the really important points are the flying skills must be in a way that we feel that he is a safe pilot in very rough and strong conditions and having a lot of experience in these conditions, also combined in a way of flying when you are tired in a way so that you made some kind of walking up of the mountain and hiking for a long time and flying.
Then, for example, like you did there in Alaska, something like this, because you know that's a totally different kind of skill you need then compared to the normal flying at your flying site on a sunny Sunday where you just take a cabin going up and flying down. Or flying around. So this is quite different. On the other hand, we like to see that people are also able to compete in a way. So if you have some kind of
good results in competitions, maybe PVC competition or also hike and fly competitions where you had good results this is also a quite important point.
What you were saying before about trying to make sure that people are competent in the air and in maybe sketchier conditions or how are you deciding that if they don't really have much of a flying resume if you will? Because flying World Cups and flying hike and fly are very different things. Is it basically like will you look at the, well, first how many applications do you get?
Yeah, let's say around 100. Okay. It's always sometimes a little bit more, sometimes a little bit less, but it's around 100.
So devil's advocate a little bit here. So if you have those 100, are you really trying to pick the 32 most capable athletes or is some part of that, you know, I would imagine just the way the numbers are skewed with different countries, you know, is there a limit to say the number of Germans or Austrians or Italians and then is there a marketing side of the 32 that are chosen?
Yeah, there's not a real limit on how many athletes per country, but on the other hand, there is the wish to have athletes from different countries. So we really want to have an international competing field so of course it's harder as a German or Austrian pilot to get into the race than for example, like somebody from Australia or some countries where we don't get so many applications in.
Are you also assessing the person in terms of their marketing potential for the race or is it just strictly skill? You know what I mean, like their social media following or their pictures or films or their presence in the paragliding community?
Yeah, I mean it's always hard not to get to be influenced by this presence because of course somebody who has a good presence in the paragliding community already has a name which makes it easier to say, okay, we will take him for the race, depending of course what his name is looking like. So he must bring really good stuff in his social media things. But on the first place and much more important are the skills.
And then how much are the athletes that have been in a previous edition, how much are they protected? And by protected I mean, if you have four slots say and you've got five great candidates but four have been in the race before, does that fifth guy really not have a chance or are you going to still bump him if he's got better qualifications than somebody who's already been in the race?
If he really has better qualification then it's no question then he will be one of the ones being in the race and one of the other guys will fall out. But on the other hand, I mean, you know, the XARPS feels like a family somehow and you know each other quite intensely during this race time. And of course this can be a kind of protection if this knowing each other was bringing everybody to the point that he said, okay, it was a good thing to be in the race. I mean, not everybody being in the race afterwards wants to come back to the race again and also maybe we don't feel that he should come back because there were some issues where we didn't feel happy about it.
But normally if things run in a good way you will get some kind of protection. Because we know you already and you know us already and so you know much more into what kind of adventure you are applying and where you will come into.
I'd love to hear some of the things that would, you know, you mentioned there have been things that athletes have done. Obviously I don't want you to mention who but what are some of the things that are maybe behind the scenes that are a real pain for management for you as the race director or, you know, some of the things that athletes have done that are, you know, that would cause a disqualification in the future?
Yeah, I mean for us always the biggest fear or what we really don't like to see are accidents or are dangerous situations. So if we have the intention that people are bringing themselves always again into dangerous situations then we will react in a way. And if it's really a high dangerous situation it will lead also to disqualification or to this that if the race is ended this guy will not take part anymore.
Night pass. This is a this is not only my own question but we got this a lot from most of the other athletes and actually some of the people that watch the event. Why noon? You know, calling it calling it at before noon when you often things can radically change in the next, you know, 10 hours that just seems like a marketing thing. Is it? I'm asking you to be really honest here but why can't we call the night pass you know, whenever we want? And so then we can potentially you know, like it comes to mind Gaspard in the last event you know, called his night pass the day he was coming into
Garda and then you know, ended up basically at the bottom of the lake and so it was totally useless for him. And it it often is something that I think if we could call it later in the day would be much more useful. It
has some history this this time of calling it out at noon. It was having the history when we had Servus TV within the race they just needed it to get themselves in the right position. And yeah, in the end we were discussing quite long last time about it if we should not move it to a later time. For us it's quite important to have this information quite soon because then we can organize ourselves better to have somebody being a side of the athletes who are taking the night pass to just have a better eye on them or to have some some good video material
also of them from this so it's an organization organizational question this that it's for us quite useful to know it before and on the other hand one thing we did not really like to have is that you guys get yourself in a position on the mountain where you your only choice to get out of this position is to pull your night pass. Because you say I don't reach this next hut in time or something like this. It should not be something you use on the last minute because your tactic is not working working out
and this we did not like to have because of security reasons. Got
you. Okay. The next question this one comes in quite a bit and I was shielding a lot of questions on this before the race last time and this actually isn't something that personally bothers me but I have been thinking about it quite a bit team flying so like cloud flying cloud flying is not something that you know you as the race organization can really monitor that's just the athletes being honest and you know being truthful and that's just that's the sport of paragliding we're not supposed to go into the cloud so John Chambers was real critical of that you know claiming that he'd seen athletes use the clouds and go up in the clouds to get a better glide and you know I think we as athletes just have to live with cheating if we're you know if you're okay with cheating then you've got to live with wherever you end up as a result but I am curious about the team flying aspect you know and the reason it's never really bothered me is that Chrigel wins and he doesn't team fly so
but a lot of the teams really do have big teams and and are very often in the air with two or even more other pilots and it was explained to me that you know it was just something that really even the athlete can't control because you know say the first day in 2015 we had that beautiful day you know Paul Guschlbauer had like three guys with him I don't think they were part of his team I think they were you know just good pilots that saw the X-Alps guys coming through and oh there's Paul and let's go fly with him obviously that is you know something that no one can control you know even the athlete but you know a lot of the teams now you know of course mostly the European guys will
you know this is their backyard and so they've got really really good pilots flying with them clearly that's a huge advantage how do you guys feel about that has it been discussed you know because it seems like that's something that could be eliminated like it is in the X-Pyr where it's just it's like cloud flying it's not allowed you know don't do it
we were discussing about it after the last edition because there we had a lot of team flying and we came to the end that we will not allow it in the next no cool edition so this will be one thing which will be not allowed for me the really big problem is that I'm for me it's very hard to control this sure as you said before it's it's maybe similar with this cloud flying that it's not easy to control it and yeah I mean you put it in words very nicely that sometimes maybe not even the athlete is is the one who really wants to have these pilots on his side but they just appear because they they it's easy to be on the same spot you can see every athlete leave a wire live tracking where he is so it's easy to to get yourself in a position close to him and that's a point which is really hard to to deal with it in a fair way so we on the one hand we will say it's not allowed but on the other hand the question will come up hey what to do if somebody by mistake is on the same place can I still fly in the thermal while already the other one is turning or do I need to fly to another one or what to do about it yeah
I mean I think in that case it just has to be you know on our conscience it's just it's just like the cloud flying you know there are athletes that are maybe gonna you know skirt the rules there a little bit and there's there's those that just absolutely won't because it's important to them and I mean some things you guys just can't control you know that's understandable from the organization standpoint you know I don't know if 2015 threw it off because so many got into the goal when the rules were changed and I want to ask you about that rule change the 48 hour versus 12 days now but you know from the I think historically it's gotten like an 11 % finish rate you know for you as the race director for the race for the benefit of the race is it is it better when very few people get in because it just proves how hard it is or how many do you personally want to see in goal for
me personally it was perfect this 2015 where so many came in and I was yeah I think I was always going up driving up with the bicycle or with the car or by foot going up
to everybody who came in or go together with him the last kilometers because for me it was great to see all these guys coming in and somehow being rewarded in a in a nice way for all this pain and struggle you had to pass through on this 10 days or 12 days you had time coming in so for me it's perfect if there's a lot of people coming in and
what about the race what do you think what do you think Ulrich thinks what do you think is best for the marketing of the event
for the marketing it's also quite fine if there's a lot of people coming in so on from this site nothing nothing is speaking against a lot of people coming in it's it's still true I think it's still proven that the race is a hard race and we will never know how the the weather will be because with a real good flying condition more people will come in and with less good flying condition less people will come in to go so I think for the race it's nice if a lot of people come in the only thing why we changed the 48 hours to the 24 hours in the
closing time of the goal was that we did not like to run out of time you know this time was really
sharp the end because the time for everybody is running out after this two weeks because you have some plans when to fly back home again and we have to set up the prize ceremony and everything and so oh
totally I think everybody completely understood this year what I was actually talking about was when it went from basically this is going to be the last day from you know before it was just 48 hours after the first person got in you know I think I think a lot of people see that it was the race was much harder to finish when it was that way because so few people can keep up with Chrigel you know he'd get in and almost nobody else would be able to make it in in 48 hours so it's it's an obvious solution I just it's a I think that happened in 2013 right
yeah yeah yeah there it was yeah just two people coming in so
that's an interesting question I hadn't planned on asking you that but is it for the race would of course you know everybody would like to see somebody else win because that'd be exciting but but is it do you think it's it's been good for the race to have somebody that's so dominant or I don't do you even have an opinion on it hmm
I'm I'm not sure about it I I think it's not good and it's not bad because to me it makes the feeling that or I hope that people are watching anyhow the race because they just love the race so I think yeah of course it would be nice if somebody else would come in first and it was quite quite nice this year to have Gaspar so close to Gregor and it was putting much more tension in it but yeah the race will be like it is so yeah of
course of course it just gives us all something to fight for even harder it's it's great so
that's again
just to so I
really
hadn't talked about the at
the race live tracking and watch and they're so into it you know i think the numbers are crazy it's like five million or more or something um you know there's hardly a mention of half of the athletes in the in the kind of the promo video or the you know the wrap-up video that's an hour long um yeah is that just purely a marketing thing that they just they have their athletes that they love to show because i i know for the fans and for those of us that don't get near time um it's quite annoying yeah
yeah i understand totally uh this point and for me it's also annoying um but as you told before it's not really my my topic so um i also only can guess and can bring this input once again into into their organization and hoping it will change but yeah it's not my topic yeah
i understood just you know the in this last race after going doing quite well and then being right near the back it's kind of exciting and being in the back it's there's a lot of things going on back there and i think some of the fans would would enjoy that it's it's quite stressful um yeah
i think it's every team which has a real good history and real good stories happening around so from every team you can make good good videos so good movie and that's
true that's true um christoph you mentioned that you i imagine you guys have a very thorough debrief after the after the race and you already mentioned that the the team flying was the one of the ones that came up and that will be banned in the next in the next event which is great um what are some other things that came out of maybe this race or previous ones that we can are there other are there other things we can expect to see change
yeah i mean uh the the most important thing for sure is the life which um in the start of this year or last year it's already in 2018 now um was not working in the way how it should um this was really bad um that's for sure uh the the main point where we are working on for the next edition and then of course there are a lot of small things which are in in this point here it's not worth to talk to talk about all of them but yeah the life tracking is it's a hard hard thing because you you cannot really test it in a good way before because uh all these systems work very well if you just have a few users watching it um at the moment where uh the load is coming up because you have so many spectators around the world then the service just cannot
deal this load and break down and then all the life tracking breaks down like it did in the beginning this last edition yeah
i i know that i know the uh see as an athlete i wasn't aware of any of that until after the race of course um but uh you know that was one of the things you go back on the forums and people get so outraged about but i don't i think there's an underappreciation for how hard that is and it's just it's a monumental task isn't it making that all work there's a lot there's a lot of inputs um so yeah i have uh i have sympathy for those guys for sure um what what is the what is the kind of tell us something the behind the scenes that's that's very irksome for you you know very troubling or uh that's maybe redundant you know that's something that you often have to deal with that we don't know about you know are there are there pains that the either the fans or the athletes don't see
yeah maybe one thing which also the the fans can see out there is when somebody is running out of the life tracking by uh whatever reason uh he gets lost there for half an hour or one hour then we all uh always um get in alert and try to find out what's what's going on there and because we we always want to see uh that everything is running in a good way and if somebody needs help uh he should get help as fast as possible and so that's one of the points where we put a lot of effort into to always see if everything is running in the right way and one of the points how we do it is just uh using all this life tracking devices uh to see if people are moving uh in in a in a good way
airspace uh this has been a common one and i i know the answer to this because i was in all the meetings so but i think the audience doesn't really understand why the penalties are so in some ways some of the penalties seem arbitrary and others is like like airspace violations uh can seem one downright brutal like the japanese athlete in 2013 or the uh or in this race we had quite a few uh 48 hours of airspace and i think that's one of the reasons why the penalties are are penalties which are which are really tough uh obviously for for those who who hit it um i think what probably many of the audience doesn't know is that it was also really tough because we didn't really have our finalized airspace files until literally the race started um so that was kind of tricky because we'd all done our training and everything um you know and and mapped it all out and had that kind of sorted and changing that stuff can be quite tricky um but how do you how
is is that something that's under review or is that well tell us about airspace yeah
okay for me the the airspace violation is not just making a little mistake because uh for example if you fly into the airspace of innsbruck um there's really a lot of uh traffic with uh big airplanes flying in there where uh sometimes 200 people are sitting in this aeroplane and if there is um some accident happening because one paraglider is flying in there it's it's not just uh like walking over red uh red
signal sign on the street this is quite different you you can really put other people in in big problems or even uh make them fly because you were um not fulfilling the rules so this is uh something different and normally you would just uh on on other um occasions you would just uh give him zero points for for this flight or or just take him out of the of the race and uh this is on the other hand quite hard uh to to put the people really out of the race and so um that's why the penalty is very high so everybody should be aware that it's something which is really costing a lot if you are not fulfilling the rules in in this point but you still have a chance to stay in the race i
thought a really interesting i wasn't planning on asking you this christoph but i thought a really interesting point before this race was um gaspart and antoine were really concerned that the the national parks down in france were were basically you know like you said you have you have airspaces like innsbruck and sion that are really severe because they have to be um and then you have these other airspaces that are you know most people like myself would go fly in france and i wouldn't have even known about those um but for the french pilots it's a big deal you know you've got you've got the world watching and they can't you know
if they if they could by the race in other words the race wasn't going to uh penalize them at all but they wouldn't because they're countrymen and it's illegal um how will that be handled in the in the future that was that was just something that you know i believe red bull wasn't even prepared for so it was too late to change anything but um you know that it's it's tricky down there for us to get to monaco to thread through all those uh national parks and and not fly through
yeah you're absolutely right with this and uh it's very tricky situation and on the next edition for sure we will make it in the way that it's not allowed to to fly through these national parks like we did already with the american tour park on the 2017 edition and we will do the same on on these other parks which are sensible and just try to make the route in a way that it's not coming so close or going through these national parks great
um you've kind of talked about this and again this isn't your side of things but because this came in and i promised i would ask it um tell me about the compromises between the the marketing business side and the the sport side uh i was kind of discouraged after the race i got quite a few messages on facebook and i was like oh my god i'm not going to be able to do this book and stuff that you know from people that weren't really big you know pilots didn't really understand the race but it kind of gotten hooked in and watched it a bit they saw it as a quote unquote marketing stunt which i tried to you know assure them that that was you know i was not out there doing a marketing and stunt i was suffering um but you know is this you do you have an opinion on that i know this this is not your end of the race you know that that's not what you deal with but um i i think people are frustrated at times with the the marketing side and i obviously that's what makes it go you can't run a race like this that costs a lot of money without it but do you have an opinion on that or is that something you guys discuss you know before and after the race yeah
of course we we discuss it and i know you know uh i'm on the side of the athlete so i'm on the sporting side there but as you told it already on the other hand if you want to compete in a race like this which has such a big audience you need money to do it and this money you only get by uh making some some deals with sponsors where they want to be shown in in the videos or in in all the media so you always um have to make some kind of compromise and um yeah but but i'm on the sporting side so that's always i'm the one pulling it to this direction if i can thank
you but we i understand that and we i think everybody does um okay putting you on the spot i was going to ask my typically very long question and put words in your mouth i'm going to try not to do that tell me about the prologue
uh the the prologue is one thing one uh our big sponsor he he likes very much uh this prologue to make part so uh that's one of the reasons why why we have this prologue and why we need this prologue um about uh what to do if the weather is not flyable like we had it last time uh for sure it will be much better to have it in a way that you do not need to run down the mountain like like we had it this time so uh we need to to think very severely about this and maybe if the weather is not flyable just to make the goal up on on a mountain where mostly reaching this mountain you're you only go uphill great
yeah that was great that was you know i think unfortunately it it turned out to be quite tragic for some of the some of the competitors you know uh thinking like erin durgani stuff i mean i think their knees really suffered because of that but i i know that that was painful for
them and i think that's a good thing for
you as well um i think a lot of the fans didn't really understand that of
course it was painful for me but on on the other hand it was also painful to see that uh the guys are treating themselves in such a way because i i mean it's it's not such a big deal to to walk up this mountain and walk down again it's something uh who is a little bit trained should be
able for him to do it in a suitable time without getting hurt from it i
was i was uh i was quite proud that i went really really as hard as i could up and then i was a snail coming down i'm too old for that running downhill stuff so yeah i couldn't agree with you more i mean that's that's uh you know your responsibilities as an athlete start um you know right then so well it starts in all the training in the months and months before um great uh yeah
and just to have one last word on this prologue maybe it's something also the athletes need to learn they for sure learned something about this 2017 edition and i'm quite sure next time they will not run down like crazy anymore yeah
that's right hopefully we get smarter uh you you answered this already but one obviously somebody from romania said will i ever get a chance to compete um of course we'll be in every time uh you already answered that you said that you know if you're qualified doesn't matter where you're from you'll get in so i don't think we have to go through that uh yeah
no that's how it is yeah of course totally true yeah
and then um okay last one are are you uh and by you i mean the organization prepared for a scenario of a really serious accident or even a death of a competitor um you know i know you personally that you're very concerned about safety but how you know tell us about how the organization thinks about it
yeah i was also fighting quite a lot for the inreach and in the end it worked out and i was happy about it um on the other hand this life tracking system is such a big and complicated um scenery that it's not so easy to just include some more device in the air uh like um they did then with this inreach device because for the spot already everything was ready we had a lot of people or not a lot but you you also were bringing in some people with quite good technology um skills uh who said they would help us in a way to to include it into the life tracking but uh you're looking really on this life tracking uh everybody saw that it was a really complex uh system and it's not so easy to include something in there um yeah anyhow in the end uh it worked out and inreach was uh allowed also and for sure the inreach is the better device much better than the spot yeah
great well um christoph is there is there anything else i've i've uh you've answered everything i thank you so much that was very kind of you and very generous of your time is there anything else that we haven't covered uh
i think i at the moment i don't know but i i'm one point on i would say to everybody this is uh that in 2017 there were no women competing and in 2015 there were two and we would be very happy to have application of women uh to come in again there so in 2017 it was not that i was uh not allowing women to to compete or we were uh point taking them out it was just that there were no women uh sending in the application so please send in your application we will be happy to uh let you in the race if you have the right skills and um same to everybody who was really motivated and having skills uh try to compete in um this hike and fly competitions or on in other competitions which have some fia value and yeah try to get the right skills and we will be happy to get you in the race hey
i i you know before we sign off that brings up a a question that i'd like to ask um all these years as race director you've been doing a lot of work on the race you've watched it as closely as anybody what are some of the common mistakes you see in maybe the less experienced athletes you know what what would be what what is what is your advice to us uh you know to to help the field uh close it close the gap on on Chrigel
oh it's hard but but maybe one of the the points is uh not to to start too fast just just don't uh don't waste all your power in in the first days and especially not on the first day says
to the guy who pulled his night pass night one and went all night yeah of course you thought it was that was so funny i mean after the 2015 race we did a massive debrief and the number one thing we decided on is that we wouldn't even use our night pass except at the very end only only in an emergency at the very end trying to do some hero move and then and then bruce called my night pass that morning i didn't even know we i got the message for me like wait what
although i don't i don't think it did too much damage to us in terms of my energy level but oh man
the night pass can kill you so easily because uh you waste so much uh precious refreshing time yeah that it's hard to to get fresh yeah after again i
think it takes tolls that you don't even know about too it's often you know physically i felt totally fine but it's the decision making that i think really suffers you know and you don't even know about it but just being in the air and missing a thermal or missing a trigger or just being a little bit tired it really that's where that's where it kills you but well christoph thanks so much i really appreciate this i'm so glad we were able to do this and uh you've got me all fired up for the 2019 one all over again so even though we're all it's way off in the distance i can't wait to see you again and and uh and and do another race across the alps yeah
cool um yeah nice to have me there and yeah cool to have you uh here on the screen more or less
cool christoph thanks so much i appreciate it and uh have a continued great winter and uh we'll catch you on the flip side yeah
thank you goodbye
ah well fans of the X-Alps hope you enjoyed that to the X-Alps and teams uh hope that clarifies some things and uh gets us all excited about the 2019 event and the whole bunch of the hike and fly races that are uh coming up this year the board air race and the borns to fly and the X-Pyr it's a big year i'm going over with ben hopefully uh actually by the time this is out we'll have known if we got in but i'm actually supporting ben in this year's X-Pyr that'll be pretty fun kind of reversing the roles around so uh but hope you enjoyed that as always all we ask for is a buck a show if you're getting something out of the cloud-based mayhem uh think of it like a magazine subscription or a video subscription or something uh of course it takes us a lot of time to do these and it'll always be free but if you can uh support us it's a listener supported show we don't do any stuff with sponsors and uh we really appreciate it a buck show goes a long ways to help us with the editing and storage and music and and time so thanks very much we appreciate it you can find where to find us on on the on the website cloudbasedmayhem.com you'll see all the links on there and you can support us in a couple different ways one of them through patreon where you can kind of get it set it and forget it and be rewarded for doing so a lot of stuff on that that's patreon.com forward slash cloud-based mayhem and uh we'll see you on the next show thanks very much cheers