Hi there everybody. Welcome to another episode of Cloudbase Mayhem. I apologize again for being a little late with these last few shows. We will get back on track. I've just been super buried lately with this house build and everything that's going on. But I have a terrific show for you today. I just literally hung up with Baptiste Lambert. Those of you who don't know him, well, you would have had to have not flown comps at all the last few years. He's dominating. He's currently third in the world. He won Macedonia in the last World Cup I went to back in July. He was first or second in five of seven days. He didn't even need to fly the last day to win it. He just got back from the Europeans, and he's just taken on a new job as a harness designer with Ozone, and we talk a lot about comp tactics in this one and strategies and headspace training, and he comes from a long lineage of pilots, and he started flying tandems with his dad and his grandfather when he was three, and his twin sister, and he both have a lot of years and a lot of hours under a wing.
I spent a lot, many years in Reunion, a very cool island out in the Indian, and a place where they've had tons of comps over the years. But anyway, a lot of fun, and Baptiste was terrific, and we just had a blast. I think you're going to enjoy it. This show, being that it's going to come out here immediately after I record this opening, we've got a few, let's see, a little over two weeks until the Red Rocks Wide Open, open one of our U.S. Nationals events and pre PWC. There's going to be good letters. We've got a nice field. We're going to go big, and at that time of year, the base is definitely going to be way up tall with some good weather, and oxygen is recommended, and we're not doing short sweet tasks unless everybody's just exhausted.
We're going to try to go big and explore this monumentally cool zone of Utah, sandwiched between a whole bunch of national parks: Bryce, Dinosaur, and Escalante, and the Grand Canyon. And pretty wild out there, it's gonna be a lot of fun and still got, I think, 10 spots. So if you're interested in coming over, or if you're already here in North America and want to do some very cool racing, it's going to be a great scene. Check it out on Air Tribune. Enjoy, enjoy this really fun talk with Baptiste Lambert. Cheers.
Baptiste, welcome to the Mayhem. It's good to see you here after we raced together in Macedonia, and then I was very keenly watching the Europeans. And we're going to talk all about comps, but let's start off with what we were chatting about before we started recording. It sounds like you've got a new job and a big new move. What have you just done?
Yeah, I changed completely my lifestyle because I went from Annecy to the south of France because I'm joining the R &D development team of Ozone. So I will work for Ozone now as a designer for harnesses.
Ah, wicked. And what were you doing before then?
Before that, I was a math teacher in Annecy. and yeah, it wasn't totally my thing and I had this big opportunity at Ozone and I couldn't resist. I had to take the job.
How long have you been an Ozone pilot?
I don't know. Yeah, I don't know. I've been flying Ozone since ENSO 2. And yeah, ENSO 2. So when was it? 2012, 13, 12? I don't know.
Okay. For those who aren't aware, I mean, you're very aware of you if you're a comp pilot these days. I think you're ranked, last I checked, you're ranked third in the world and you were dominating in Macedonia. I don't think I've ever seen something so dominating as that. You were first or second, five. You didn't even need to fly the last day and you had it in the bag. That was truly amazing. But take us through your history and give us the long version. When did you start? I understand you come from a big family of paragliders.
Yeah, yeah, sure. My parents were started paragliding when I wasn't even born, and even my grandfather, he was paragliding still. Yeah, he stopped like two years ago, but he was 80. So, but he, he was 80 when he stopped, but he still, he, he just stopped flying because he thinks it's, it's, he's now too old. But yeah, it's, uh, it's a family thing, and, uh, even my twin sister, he, she was flying with us, tandem flying, but she was even playing with us. And yeah, we flew together when we were like three years old. We, we did a lot of tandems with both of our parents, and we flew like 300 hours of tandem them, both, both of us.
And yeah, it's a lot, and we even flew with, uh, the, we, yeah, we, we piloted, uh, with, uh, our parents, and we, we did some cross country already there back then. Wow.
Was this all mostly in Annecy? Are you from Annecy, uh?
No, no, it was, uh, we were in the south of France, uh, at this time, and, uh, it's continued, uh, until, uh, Reunion Islands, uh...
Reunion Islands, that's a place that I've, I've sailed to. I sailed across the Indian Ocean many, many years ago and spent some time in fact. I flew Reunion. This was way back when I was very early. I was mostly surfing, uh, what is the left? The Laloo, right is left, you know that, that thing? Yeah, and, uh, and it was very sharky when I was there. It was kind of intimidating, but wow, wicked, wicked break. And, uh, and yeah, I took some of my kind of early, I don't know, I, I had just learned how to fly when I was there. I was like 20, 2004 or 5, I guess it was, but that's
like me, because this is the place, uh, I, I really learned to fly, really, oh
wow yes
My, my history is that's like, yeah, when I was 10, uh, even a little bit earlier, my parents gave me a old wing. It was a pink one, and I was on the takeoff doing a lot of ground handling, annoying most of the the pro pilots who were flying there in tandem because I was all all day on the takeoff trying to to try new stuff, just ground handling, you know, getting used to it. And I did two years of ground handling, and this was in Ringan Island. And when I was 12, it was finally legal for me to fly because in France, you're not allowed to fly too early. And when you're 12, you are.
So I did my first real flight in Saint-Lieu. And yeah, I was 12 in Saint-Lieu. So just like you, my very beginning is in Réunion Island.
Wow. Yeah, we've got a big age spread, bud. but I'm sure I'm quite a bit older than you are. But yeah, that's a really neat place to learn. So when did you start getting into comps and more professional flying? Was that shortly after or was that way down the road?
In Réunion, the first years after my first flights there, I just tried to do some cross country, try to fly fast because I always like to fly with a goal and something to improve on, and I started local competitions because in Réunion Island there's a competition every weekend, so that's cool to practice and to compare with friends, and this helped me improve very fast. I think these competitions that happens every week, so I started these competitions and I had to to finish my studies, to finish a big part of my studies in Rhenian Island.
So I stayed there until I was 20. And then I moved to France, where it is easier to compete because of the price of the airplanes.
Yeah, sure. Was moving to the Alps, did you have, was that a big move psychologically biologically to go from flying XC and reunion, which I, which I imagine is pretty limited. I mean, it's not, it's not a very big Island. I, I, I wasn't an XC pilot when I flew there. I launched and flew down to the LZ. I didn't go anywhere, but the, you know, I know you can do some really interesting stuff like you can in Tahiti and you kind of dive back into the deepness and reunion and all those beautiful canyons and stuff, but, uh, was going to Alps kind of just mind blowing or was this something you did all the time anyway? And it was, it was no big deal.
It was a big deal. It was really a big deal because in Rhenian Island, when you fly, conditions are really smooth. Like the big epic terminal is when you have a plus two. So it isn't that scary at all, you know. Right. And when you hear that in France that there are people going like plus seven or so, you say, ah, this is not this is not even possible. Because for me, I didn't see even like plus three, maybe the most, but uh, yeah, it's very smooth in rhenium. We call it like the—it's like the flatlands with a little angle, you know? It's so, so even. The big canyons don't fly it that often. Like, there are circles inside, uh, inside the island.
It's the old volcano who collapsed on itself, and uh, there I don't fly it a lot, but this—this could be more close to what we fly in France, but I flew mostly on the flatlands with a little angle, you know.
Right, right, right. Yeah, I think these islands, you know, because I spent a lot of time sailing and Tahiti was like that. You know, if the island's big enough and they're in the trades, you fly in the lee on the other side of the island. It just kind of wraps around and it's beautiful. It's incredibly consistent too, I understand, especially about… Yeah, you
can fly a lot of days during the year because you are in the Lee, and so the conditions are very smooth, and you can fly very often. And there's no winter, so you can fly a lot. And compared to France, it's a very small space because the Lee side is quite short. Sometimes you have only like 30, 40 kilometers to do, and that's all. So when you fly a lot of years in these islands, then you lack a little bit of space, you know, you want to do something bigger. And that's why moving to France was quite a relief, paraglidingly speaking, because I could open my area where I wanted to go and visit new places.
And were you part of the French program in France when you went to France? Did you come up through the juniors program there? And I don't even know what you call that, the juniors team,
What Charles Cazot did
and Maxime.
Yeah, it's called the Pôle France. So a lot of good pilots came from there. But me, you know, I was, when I came to France, I was too old already. I was 20 and this is for when you are in high school, you know, so I was more than I was in a separate, I was progressing, but on my separate, separate way.
Okay. So you were kind of doing it on your own.
Yeah. I was my, with my father because we, I always fly with the goal to improve, to, to try something. thing. Uh, I never, I rarely fly, uh, just to fly and without school, you know, I just like to improve, to try things, to, to always push, push myself. When, when I fly cross country, I'm in competition, you know. I, I, I try to do my best and, uh, I was with my father, who, who used to fly this the same, and this helped me a lot, uh, to, to compare and I, I don't like to fly alone because you don't see how you're doing. So I wasn't in a good structure like Paul France, but I was still with good pilots in Réunion Island because there are a lot of good pilots.
And yeah, this helped me a lot.
How many hours would you say you get a year, say since 20, when you moved to France?
It depends on the year because there were two years after I was 18 where I was in a school preparing for engineering school. And this was quite intense, so I didn't, I didn't fly a lot. But um, yeah, usually I fly to 200 years, 200 hours a year, I would say, and
Is your main focus Baptiste? Is it mainly comps, or you know, I in researching you a little bit, getting ready for this talk, you know, you do some big XC as well. I, I know that's part of your, but how does that split look? Is it 50-50 or is it 90-10 comps? What's your focus?
I would say I like both.
If it's preference, I like both. It's 50-50. In duration, I would say I do a little bit. Yeah, it's 50-50 everything in fact. For me, it's a very big part to do cross country. It's the why we fly. It's doing big flights and pushing ourselves, and it's a good way to improve even for competitions. They are very related. A good cross country pilot will be good in competitions, I think.
I was going to ask you that because I have found over the years that it – I totally agree with you, but it doesn't seem very linear to me. And what I mean by that is, you know, there are amazing XC pilots who don't necessarily have the results when they go to comps, you know, they haven't maybe linked to the connection there. I mean, obviously to fly comps, well, we have to be XC pilots, but there's a difference there as well. You know, we have, I've seen comp pilots who maybe just don't have the time for chasing a lot of XC in their year. They don't have much time off, but they, maybe they don't get very many hours, but they can, you know who I'm talking about too, they show up at a comp and you know they're going to do well.
They've kind of just learned the secret of the trade, I guess. i
Think that there are things that are very related, so flying XC will help you a lot in competition, but it will not help you in every aspect of competition; and the other way around, flying a lot in competition will help you for some things in your XC, but not entirely there. Yeah, there are things that are really specific to the domain. For instance, when you fly XC, you will fly mostly alone or with one or two other pilots. So you will lack the notion of control, controlling a group, a gaggle, which is a very tactical thing that doesn't happen in XC.
But on the other hand, you will learn to center the thermic alone, to fly fast alone, to to to do all that stuff like attacking. It will improve your way of attacking alone in the competition. So yeah, it's there are things that are specific, things that are very related, and it also, I think, depends on the way you fly XC. There are people who fly XC, they do big flights, but they don't fly like, uh, in competition, trying to, uh, to do the best to maximize every seconds they have. Me, when I fly, I fly like in competition. I always almost full speed all the time. I'm really trying to maximize and make like, if they are, there's a big, big gaggle behind me and trying to to go faster than them.
You know, I'm always in competition.
Competition did has has flying been, uh, a profession for you at all, or is it just now because you're going to work with ozone? But are was it when you were a math teacher, was it also something that you would call yourself? Have you called yourself in the past, in the past, a professional pilot, uh?
No, I don't think I'm a professional pilot because, uh, in paragliding we don't earn that that much money, so we can't, we can't live with that. But in France, we have advantages when we are, when we do good results. For instance, when you are a math teacher, you only work half of the hours; you, you have a lot of advantages when you are in a very good placement. So, it was very important for me to make good results to have these advantages, but it was not, Not financial advantages, but more time and location advantages.
That's quite neat. So you're motivated by results in that you can have more time dedicated to it. Is the French government? Okay, so the French government comes in and reciprocates. Yeah, they
set a specific objective. For instance, now they have shortened it. So now you have to be top five world to have these advantages when you are over 25.
Oh, wow. That's really cool. That's neat.
Top five world, you have big pressure because it's really difficult. Yeah, especially in France. And once you lose it, then you can't compete as much. You can't free your time for competition. So it's quite important. So I would say I was half pro because there's a big reason why I want to do good results, but it's a little bit financial help, but mostly it's time-related.
Baptiste, how old are you now? You moved to France when you were 20. How long have you been at this? Now I'm 26. Okay. I'm going to take you through some questions here that I've been thinking about since Macedonia that are very comp related, but feel free to just jump off into stories that help elaborate it or anything that you think would be beneficial to the audience, knowing that our audience, some don't fly any comps, but many do, or many are just getting into it. So we'll take this from whatever angle you want. But I thought where we'd start is advice for comp pilots that are just getting into comps. For new people to comps, you know, I think it can be quite overwhelming and it can also be quite humbling.
Uh, and so I'm wondering, I'm wondering, you know, to me there there seem to be stages that we go through, and I'd like to get your feelings on what if you're new to comps, just you know, lower regional level stuff, not necessarily World Cups, but what should you focus on? What, what should be your goals when you're, you know, your first five, ten comps, kind of thing, so...
First thing I would say, uh, try to to make the parkour, so try to finish the the race. Uh, don't focus on speed, just try to finish the race and see what it's like to to make goal. You know, you know the first step, the the first, uh, the first competitions is just about making goal, and, uh, you will be surprised of your results because, uh, I think a lot of, uh, of newcomers try to to focus on speed, uh, too early, and, uh, it doesn't work, so just try to make goal and step by step, you try to improve on some aspects, but first just try to make goal. Then, once you can, you are able to make goal most of the time, and, yeah, consistently, you can try to improve few things.
The first one I would say is trying to fly with the gaggle. The gaggle is a big tool in, uh, in competition, and, uh, without it, you are very, um, like naked, you know, uh, you can bomb out very easily, uh, and you need to fly. You need, I say, really, you need to fly, uh, with the gaggle, uh, to be efficient, so it will help you to go faster and to go to goal more consistently. So, so always fly with someone. Try not to, don't try to attack in front when you try your first count. Just try to follow good guys and try to follow the gaggle.
And when you do it, there are certain mistakes that you can do and that you can easily avoid is when you follow the gaggle, don't try to follow a gaggle when you are below. Once you follow your gaggle and maybe you took a bad line and you are a little bit below, then the next thermal you catch, try to stay a little longer in it and take the second group. And if you lost the second group, then take the third group. But don't try to follow the first group if they are going to pass for you. So this is my first advice. advice. Follow the gaga. Try to stay with a group that is okay for you. If they are too fast, try to stay with the second group, but never fly alone.
Talk to me about strategy. For example, when you were in Macedonia, before anything even starts, what are you thinking about before the task, even the night before or the week before? What are you trying to put in place and then through the various stages before the start. So now you're off the hill, but you're before the start and then during the task. Maybe let's break that into three different things. What are the head spaces you're trying to get in or what are the things you're trying to think about and maybe not think about?
Okay, okay. So it depends where you are because every task, you have a different mindset depending on your overall goal. For instance, now in the first task of the competition, I like to play it safe, to make a few points so that I have something to lay on. So the like two to three first tasks, I like to, to take it slow. Uh, so don't, don't I try not to attack, uh, because in case I bomb out, then, uh, it will, uh, I will be, uh, my mind won't be at its best if I see that I'm, uh, I'm in the, the back of, uh, of the competition, so I try to take it slow at the, the beginning.
And what about mentally? Like, tell me about your frame of mind going into Macedonia, because over the years of my comp experience, it's, I can't chalk up, you know, the really good races from the bad races mentally in terms of, you know, it seems to be that I do better if I'm more casual and I'm, you know, I'm more focusing on the fun. But, you know, know, maybe not taking it so seriously, but then there's other times where I take it quite seriously and I do. Well, I, you know, I I've never, I haven't really found that there's a magic place to be, but do you have one? That was something, you know, a kind of a mindset that you'd like to go into it, you go into it and I, you know, I'm gonna win this one, or do you just, I'm gonna go to Macedonia and have some fun.
Yeah, um, I think I'm trying to find a good mindset. I think there is one, uh, but uh, it's really hard to find, uh, for Macedonia. I think I just found it, right? And, uh, and, um, yeah, it, it was really a good experience, but it, yeah, there's no, no magical solution. It's, it's really a very thin line, uh, that you have to, to find, uh, for Macedonia. Um, yeah, the first time during the training day, I saw that it was very stable, so I said to myself, I wanted to fly very safe, to, to make a few tasks very safe in the gaggle. And if there's a very big opportunity that I'm very, I'm very much ahead, then I will try to do some stuff, but I wanted to play safe and finally, finally, what happened is that when I was in the air, I felt very good.
I often was very high in the gargoyle. Sometimes I could attack, but I didn't because I told myself it was stable. And I have set this objective that I wanted to stay with the group for the first attack. So I did, even if I had a few opportunities to, to try to escape. I didn't, because I tried to be disciplined. I tried to follow my groups, and it worked out really great. I won this task just by staying in the gaggle, trying to make good lines, and at the end, be being the highest in the gaggle and just pushing, and it helped me win the three first tasks.
But I didn't attack in these tasks. I just followed my rule and doing so the best way possible, so I finished higher in the gaggle. But, yeah, it wasn't attacking. It was just following my rules and trying to fly better than the others. this.
How many of your decisions are based on instruments versus gut feel?
It depends. For the glide to goal, I use a lot of my instruments, but during the flight, I don't use it that much. And in the submarine that I had, you couldn't see, I had a bad setup for my instrument, So I couldn't see that much and
When you're, when you say glide to goal, are you, you know, the near the end of the race, is that the main thing you're looking at? And is it, are you more focused on glide to end of speed or glide to goal, uh?
It depends if, uh, if it's not stable, and I think there are between, uh, the end of speed and goal, then I will focus on glide to end of speed, but, uh, yeah, during during this phase, looking at your glide ratio, the glide ratio to goal, is very important and trying to take the less margin as possible is really a good thing and you can't do it without your instruments there. They are very precise in doing that. During the camp, often I used to follow the optimized line to try to do the shortest route. But now I tend to, and this is what I did a lot in Macedonia, I tend to follow more the lines, the clouds, even if they deviate a lot from the line.
line. I think good lines, good convergence can make you go very fast even if you're not really on the axis. So yeah, instruments are a good tool, but sometimes you have to trust your guts and trust your sky reading.
How often would you say you make a decision that I would classify it as a little bit rash? You know, there, there, for me, there are times in a comp where, you know, when you're in a really strong position and you're sitting on top, the decisions are very easy to make, but there are times when you're maybe not in a very strong position where, you know, it's very easy to just go, ah, fuck it. I'm going to, I'm going to press on. Do you try to rein that in totally or are you susceptible to that kind of, I guess that would be an undisciplined act, you know, where you're, you know, because there's times where it's just, this isn't working. I got to keep moving.
I got to find something better.
Yeah, I completely see what you mean. I think rash decisions are very bad. Um, when you do this kind of decisions, most of the times, you know, they are, they are bad. You know, you know it deep inside you, you know it, but you do it. And um, this is flying with your heart, you know, you're flying with your emotions. And um, and this is what I try to do in Macedonia, also is not flying with the heart. You, your heart is, is for other stuff, but not for flying competition, competition. You need to fly with your brain and just making rational decisions. And you see, I have a very good example. It's like the task maybe four of, yeah, the test four or five in Macedonia.
I started very late because I had problems with my glider, so I started 20 minutes before the start and I did the start in like, in the last place or something like that. And I was like five to, to 10 kilometers behind and, uh, I, I, I tried to, to stay cool, to not to make this, uh, these bad decisions like, okay, all in, let's go, I try to, to catch up like that. And I, I talked to myself, they are, they are very far ahead. I, I saw all the, all the gaggle like little dots, you know. And, uh, I, I thought to myself, okay, if they make a mistake, I may catch up and do something.
And if they don't, they don't. But I can fly faster than I can, you know. There's a limit to what I can fly. And you won't go faster by flying low, for instance. You will go faster by taking a better line or choosing better thermals. But you just have to fly fast. So what I did is that, okay, I'm very far behind, but I take my time. Maybe there will be an opportunity. Maybe there will not, but I'll try just to fly fast. And in the end, there was an opportunity when the gaggle did the last turn point before going to the speed section.
I did a very good convergence that was not on the optimized route. route, and it was really, really great. And I did catch up at the last thermal to to end up to end up first at speed section, so it was very a patient game, but I tried to fly with the head and not with the heart, so try to make rational decisions and not to to go faster than I possibly can good
advice there, Baptiste. There's, I, I hear that, uh, you know, the French team or maybe even the The Swiss teams, they'll practice these little things that are microseconds or maybe a few seconds, but then over the course of the race will really add up. For example, you know, turning before you hit the cylinder. So you just barely get the cylinder, you know, so you're, you know, you're coming off bar maybe a little bit and getting a nice bank and then coming back on the bar. That's
some very risky things to do. I
Was just going to say, is that something you do, or is these just stories because
I don't do that. I think in competition, most of the pilots do it. You turn a little bit before and try to optimize it like that, but there are a few stories where the pilots end up not doing the cylinder, so it's very bad. In Italy, I did it and my instruments didn't turn the cylinder and I didn't see it. So for me, it was okay. I did all the tasks. And just before the end, I saw that I didn't do the turn point. And in the end, it worked out with the margin, but it was very, very tight. You know, I was lucky.
So this isn't something that's a big deal. This isn't something that people need to really work on. It's more all the other things. I mean, I'm just, you know, there's, you
know, being 30 meters behind because you didn't do it once, uh, won't be that bad.
Okay. Okay. Um, tell me about strategy for each day of the race versus the week. You know, there are the Yassins of the world that just go for the, the task win all the time and press, press, press. Russ. And then there are the disciplined pilots like yourself and Russ who are, you know, going for the win of the comp, but how do you adjust your, I'm not asking you, obviously winning a task is really fun, but how do you adjust your own personal strategy as the days go by? Is it totally dependent on where you are going in or is it more just an overall strategy? Like you were, were talking about, okay, the first days I'm going to be very disciplined. I'm going to, I'm going to make goal.
I'm not going to worry about too much about being fast, and I'll just, you know, grab the opportunity if I can. Does it stay like that all week, or does it start really changing depending on where you are? Yeah.
It depends. Uh, if you did a bad result, you already landed twice, then you, you will go for the task wins and have fun. But if you are looking for the comp win, then I would say it's, uh, it's indeed like that. It's, uh, you fly the best you can, uh, relatively consistently and, uh, try to take a few opportunities. It's a risk versus reward thing, but you try to take your opportunities if you really feel it. Uh, yeah, and it depends on the discards you have. If, uh, if you have a discard left, then you can fly a little bit more aggressively and, uh, the more the competition goes on, the more aggressive you can fly if you didn't land or didn't do a bad task.
So, yeah, it depends. Uh, depends really on your goal and, uh, on your, your previous tasks.
Talk to me about strong versus weak positions. I think this is something that, uh, you know, is if you do a lot of comps, it starts to really just be naturally make sense. But I think for, for especially for early comp pilots, the, the difference is, is maybe not so concrete. They don't really, it's, it's, it's a hard thing to really understand. Just talk about, you know, like controlling the gaggle versus being in a weak position, yeah.
So controlling the gaggles, there are multiple ways to do it and it's, uh, the most efficient way to fly consistently. Um, so yeah, obviously if you are in the front, it's, it's really hard to to take the good lines. You can, you can miss it by 50 meters and you will see when you will see it will, it will be too late. So the control is, it's a very subtle thing to do because if you are too way too back, then you will be, you, you won't have the good timings for the, sometimes it will end up and you won't catch it. So it's a, it's a very, very hard thing to do. It's, uh, yeah, there are some formulas, uh, to with angles that you can check on my YouTube channel if you want.
I talk a little bit about that, but yeah, controlling a gaggle is very hard for me. The easiest thing to do is being inside the gaggle like a, you know, like a fish inside the gaggle, not being on the borders, just inside, not in the front, not in back, just in the right, in the middle. And this is the easiest way to flying the gaga. Then there is also a good way to fly, it's, it's a little bit behind so you can see all the lines. If there are good lines, bad lines, then you decide to to switch from one line to another to another and and take the best out of everyone that is in front of you. That's easy, but you don't, you, you need to take care not to be too, too far away so not to miss the timings of the termite.
And my, my best way to fly in the gaga, it's a control that is a little bit aggressive is that when you are the highest in the gaga, you can go a little bit ahead so you are the first on the competition, you take leading points. But if things go badly, then you can, you have still have the height to to turn around and take the thermals of those who catch a thermal when you don't see it in the back. So this is the way I try to fly in Macedonia, for instance, is being the highest and use my advantage to take leading points and if things go bad then I can, I still, I can still return inside the gaggle because I had had, uh, an advantage, but this is really a little bit hard to pull off.
Yeah. Then you have to be flying very well to do that. Um, the, the, that's a good transition lead points. This has been something that, um, has caught me out several times this year. I, I, in the past, you know, they're always tweaking it and changing things, but in the, in the past, I hadn't been too too concerned with lead points because it didn't seem to really be worth the risk, but that now, uh, you know, several times in Columbia, in Macedonia, you know, I would come in and to speed and really nice position, but my lead points were terrible. And, uh, and I, and I realized I need to put some more focus on this, uh, because it was, it was killing me in the overall. And so, um, the obvious is, you know, Obviously,
we're trying to be out front, but how much are you thinking about lead points? And as the race, as that day develops, how much is that something that's in your mind, thinking about it?
Yeah, it's a very good question. It depends on what I want to do in the competition. For my way of flying, if I want to just make a top 10, then I won't be that much focused on leading points. I will just try to make a good place at the speed section and most of the time it will do the job. But I've noticed that now there are very good pilots and if you want to take the really top top top positions, You have to to focus a lot now on leading points. Every, every point counts, so these are 160 points that you can't leave behind.
So you, you need to optimize it. So, so that's a thing I did in Brazil with Maxime Pinot when the World Cup I won. We flew, and when we were in advantage compared to the Gagau, we used our advantage to take leading points. Most of the time we took bad lines because, you know, when you fly alone you are not efficient, and then we went back to the group, try to make our way on top again, and always use our advantage to transition it into some leading points. And in the end, it did a good job. It was really nice to have this little advantage of leading points.
It depends on your results; if you want to go top, top results, you have to focus a lot, and if you want to do a good result, but not the best of the best then I think you can you can leave them a little bit behind because doing a good time at speed section is really more important. And if you focus too much on leading points, there's the risk of really doing a bad thing. Do
you think your background in math really helps you with strategy and understanding the data, the algorithms and understanding FTV? Do you think that matters? That's
a funny question because in the European Championships, there was a new scoring system that was not ready yet and they still use it. And we had to go through every formula to see every bug that was occurring. So we had to see every formula and see the bugs and finally understand, because I didn't took that much time to to see all these formulas and and seeing that it helped me understand when I had to what I had to do to, for instance, for the leading points, what was important to to score these leading points and yeah, it was really nice to to look into this formulas and, of course, with my with my mathematical background, it helped a lot.
I saw that some some pilots felt a little bit powerless, you know, a little bit frustrated because we saw these bugs and they couldn't, so if we weren't there, it would be a little mess, you know, until the yeah until two tasks before the end there wasn't a final result yet everything was provisional because there were too many mistakes It takes too many bugs.
So yeah, looking into this formless is quite good sometimes.
Is that going to be a system that you think will be widely adopted in the end? Was it a good system?
Are you talking about the overall system? I think it's a very good one because there's a live scoring system, which means, for instance, the coach or French coach could see live the points, the leading points, everything, the time points. It was really great.
Huh. That's cool. I didn't know that. Just needed a little
time to be perfect, but now I think it's good.
Huh. This is more a personal question, but so you crushed Macedonia, you won there, you won Brazil,
Europeans not as successful. Is that something that is frustrating to you or is that, and by not successful, still very successful, but you didn't win it. Is that something that, you know, are you a kick-your-helmet kind of guy when you don't do well or it just rolls off your shoulders, no big deal?
No, I'm a little bit frustrated, but yeah, not that much. I'm a calm person, you know. I don't take it too bad. But I learned a lot from it. I was very hyped from Macedonia. I came, I was too confident, I think. And I told the coach, "Okay, if—if I do, if I take an advantage at the two-three first tasks, then it's okay. I'm—I will be very, very good because if I take an advantage at the beginning of the competition, then I know very well how to—to keep very, very consistently my advantage and not to lose points. But—but taking this, uh, this little advantage is sometimes difficult, so I wanted to do it, uh, from the beginning." And that was a little bit, um, how do you say, cocky, you know?
It was, uh, it was a bad decision, and I learned from it. It was a bad plan. Uh, I tried to force things instead of flying well and taking opportunities if there once, like I used to do in Macedonia. I—I was too, too confident and, um, I wanted to to to try to win from the beginning, and then okay, now I can chill and stay in the gaggle and just do good points. It will be, uh, sufficient, but now this is not the right way to. It doesn't work for me, so I think now it's, I will do my thing. If I take the advantage at the beginning, it's perfect, it's even easier, but if I don't, then maybe I will take it later.
But I don't need to force things to do good, so I, I think it was a bad plan and I learned from it. It's, it's good from time to time to, to, to take a little reminder, like, like this, you know
Yeah, of course it is. Yeah, you had the the recipe in Macedonia, just stick with it. Make the pancakes, make the pancakes, yeah.
Yeah, why change it? I just need to to keep that recipe. It was very good, and like you said in the beginning, the sometimes there's a state you want to to try to to find and to keep it, because in that state you are very good and you are, you are flying well. So I think I found it, I found it a couple of times, and now I just need to keep it. It's the same stage I was in China when I won. It's the same when I was in Brazil also. I just need to keep that recipe and don't change anything.
Have you ever suffered, Baptiste, since 20 to 26 now and now you're winning these World Cups, have you ever suffered with just lack of motivation or do you ever come out of these these things going, ah, you know, I don't really know why I'm doing this.
No, never.
Never. You don't have any trouble with getting all passionate about it and fired up.
No, no. Flying is my life, you know. Never.
Fantastic. Good. Good answer. What about physical training, diet, any of that kind of stuff? Do you, you know, hike and fly or is that part of your regimen at all?
I have a big dilemma because I used to make some workouts to be heavier because bigger wings fly better. So I did it. I went from 62 to now I'm 70. And I tried to do that to be in a good spot with muscle, but a little bit of fat to be heavy, you know. And now I'm, I have a big dilemma because I started to make hike and flies and, uh, if I want to be good at hike and fly, so I will have to lose some weight and then it won't be as good for competition. So yeah, it's a, it's a tricky thing to, to choose to
Get right, yeah, we're all gonna have to become actors or something, you know, who famously gain and lose weight for every role they're playing. But, you know, it's always encouraging to me to, to see, you know, Maxime, who's a pretty little guy, you know, he still does, he's, he's proving that you can still do it on the smaller wings. But, but, uh, yeah, that's, do I hear, uh, an X-Alps or that kind of thing in your future? No.
Not, not, except I will try to do just for fun some, uh, some local competitions, but it's still, uh, it's still a challenge for me because I didn't use to hike a lot, and now I'm trying. So, yeah, maybe I will have to to change a little bit my diet, and yeah, it's, it's quite motivating, but on the other part, I wanted to to fly a m size, and if I do it, I won't be able to fly the m size, yeah.
sure sure because
I always flew the S size, and I see there's still a little difference with the M size. Like, for instance, Maxime Pinot is now playing the M size, uh, even if he's, uh, quite lightweight, uh, he takes a lot of ballast, and, uh, I can see that, yeah, it's, it's working well. So I want to do the same, but if I lose weight from the other side, it will be even more ballast for me, so I don't know, but
the training and diet do you do you consider that an important part of success, or is that just something personal?
For success, for the competition in cross country? Yeah.
I don't think it matters that much if you... I don't think it matters that much. It's just if you want to improve a little bit by flying a bigger size, then it's okay, but just staying healthy to fly long flights, I think it's It helps you to get focused a longer time if you are healthy, but yeah, it's not that much of a big difference.
Let me ask you a totally different kind of question. One of the things that was a little annoying to me in Macedonia was the shortness of the tasks. Do you like long tasks or short tasks? To me, it's, God, those are beautiful days. Let's keep going.
Yeah, sure. I'm an XC pilot. If TASC can go for 5, 6, 7, 8 hours, I'm very happy with it. Yeah, okay. All
right. That's good to hear. I mean, I find
that often… It's a very good question because I was in the committee, in the pilot committee in the French Open, which took place in Mont-Lambert in France. And there was Maxime also with me, which always fly XU with me. And we pushed to to make these big tasks, you know, like 170 kilometers triangle things like that. And when we did, people were not that happy about that, because there are there are people who want to do competition and they want the competition to be very short and to be a quick race, and they don't think that competition and XC are related.
And yeah, there were a lot of people who weren't are happy about that, but really, I think it's a really good thing to mix, you know, XC and long flights and competition. I would love to a competitions where, you know, you go a week in a place where where you can do big flights and, uh, like the competition could be, okay, the the guy who the the person who makes the the biggest flights in the week wins or something like that. Would be amazing, you know, if you are 100 pilots trying to do cross country, imagine what we can achieve achieve.
Yeah. We're I'm running a U S nationals and a pre PWC here in a couple of weeks out in Utah. And I re if we get the weather, we're really going to try to break the, the race to goal distance record. And maybe one day we'll just do an open day. That'd be, that'd be really fun. But, uh, yeah, you know, we're, we're advertising it as, you know, don't come if you don't want to go big because it's, it's really high base and, you know, it's a good place to fly with oxygen and we're hoping to go really big. But yeah, this is something I just find can be annoying about the World Cup scene is it's always, you know, an hour and a half, two hours. They're short. I just, I want to go bigger.
I completely agree.
Yeah, good. That's good to hear.
For me, my best task was in Monte Grappa in Italy in April. And we did a 170 triangle closed. it was like an FIA triangle and it was epic we flew longer, faster it was really good and when I see that we were in the European Championships and in the same time there were people in France breaking the FIA oh my god
348 kilometers while we were doing two hours tasks, I was so, I want to go back to France. It's so good, and I think if we can do longer competitions, we won't have that feeling again. You know, we can use all the day to fly. Why are we using only two, two hours? Yeah, I completely agree with you. It's, we should fly longer that
was amazing. Those hotel and those guys, uh, when they did that, those huge fais, it was... it was kind of for me, it was a bit of a, oh man, because that's... That's where my race ended in 2019 on that coal and cold is hard, or it was hard. I don't know how you say it, but, uh, and it was an amazing flying day. My, my, I had walked all night on bare feet. My, my feet were just mangled and I had no interest in flying, but one of my supporters that day took off and had a really nice triangle. So, uh, it's, it's a, it's an amazing potential and those guys proved it. That's just, it's, you know, it's just, just over the coal from unknown. know yeah
I think they, they find just the right spot to fly. It's, it's really, it seems all natural, you know? It's, it's really good. It
all just flows, yeah? That, that's amazing with
The ozone team, we already designed a a longer version of it for the next year. It will be a foof, will be epic.
Wicked, wicked. Does that—that's a good one. Um, does big distance, record-breaking type stuff interest you, like coming to Texas or Brazil, or you know, that kind of thing?
Yeah, um, the the straight flights aren't, uh, that much my thing because of the retrieve, you know? It's, it's really long, and you can't fly two days in a row because, uh, the retrieve is too long. I, I like, uh, but I'm very, very interested in records breaking in the FIA triangle out and return, all this stuff. I'm very interested in, yeah.
That, that's, that's fun. That's really more my focus these days, too. It's awful nice to come home at the end of the day because
I have a very competition spirit, you know, and I think making your own speeds on a closed on a closed parkour on a closed way is something else than using the wind and not having the same day, um, if you are, if you, if you, if your distance is closed, then you did your own speed, you know, it's, uh, it's not the same for me, yeah.
I agree. I mean, I—the the the record tracing, record chasing, you know, downwinders is, uh, you know, there there's a real endurance side of that. Like you said, it's the—it's the retrieves, but it's when it comes down to what I like more, more about triangles, that it's really more pilot ability. Whereas the, you know, the big—and I'm not knocking, I've done tons of the long distance stuff and it's it's fantastic, and you know, the Brazilians have proved how to do it. And you know, there's—it's really the staying power. It's really, you have to treat it like a job and you're going to do this job, and because really it's the day. I mean, it—you're you're going to get the record if the day presents itself. It's not so much the pilot. I mean, on that good of a day, I think there are a lot of pilots in the world, especially these days, who could break the record, but they got to be there and do it.
Whereas the FAI, I think, is a lot more ability, and that's, you know, that's where people get separated. Yeah.
That's why, uh, yeah, I think, yeah, exactly. The the straight distance is more related on, uh, on the on the day, yeah. You can make an okay day, you can make a very, very, very big FIA triangle on an okay day if you do your best. Yeah, exactly. I think that's why I prefer, and because of the retreat, but that's another thing that I love about closed distances.
Baptiste, tell me about, totally switching gears here, but the technical side of things. what about trimming how closely are you watching your wing all the time and how often are you fiddling with it
It changed very recently. I used to to check my training trimming like every 40 or 50 hours. I used to check it, and now I just, if my wing is flying straight, I don't check it. And I only use my feeling. If my glider isn't turning that well, I will fasten my tips. If my glider is a little bit, a little bit slow in speed, or is feeling a little bit slow in thermals, also I will, I will fasten the the the a1 and the a2. Um, now I think with experience, I'm I'm uh measuring less and just flying more always. The feeling, yeah, because
Most of the time, um, yeah, of course you can see differences, but in the end, it's all the feeling that matters, yeah.
Sure, yeah, I find that too. If it feels good, oh, I mess with it. Um, yeah, okay. Last one, and and I haven't prepared you for this one at all. So you, if you have to take some time to think about it, that that's fine. But craziest thing you've ever seen in flying, ever? Okay, and crazy is defined by you, but you know, the funniest thing or the craziest thing or the scariest that whatever is, you know, something that just, when you're having a beer with your friends, you go, you you tell this story, ah.
Yeah, I think for me, craziest won't be the funniest, but just the more epic, uh, epic feeling, you know? It will be the craziest feeling for me. It will, it's, uh, after a big, big, big, uh, flight, like 11 hours flight, when, uh, I have the, the sunset and I was with Maxim and John flying, and it was so beautiful. The, the sun was going down. We, we were just making it, uh, the glide to gold was very tight, and I stopped a minute. I stopped because I'm in very, I'm in a tense competition when I'm flying in XE, and I stopped a minute and just looked around. We were very high on the last glide.
There were no more thermals, just snow everywhere, and the lights of the, the red light on the snow, and it was, and we were gliding, and when we went down, we went on the shadow, and it was such a good time. It was really great. I
Can visualize it. Of course, I wasn't there, but oh, that sounds—that sounds beautiful. Beautiful. Nice one, and a good place to end. Baptiste, thanks, man. I really appreciate it. Uh, what a joy, and what a joy to watch you fly, man. That was really... I've flown a lot of World Cups and, uh, you know, I'm used to watching guys like Honor and just, you know, do that kind of thing, but man, you were dominating. Holy smokes, that was just unbelievable, and I was, uh, just above you when you bombed out on that last day. And I thought, man, I would like to be in that position where I don't even have, it doesn't matter. I've still got the win.
That was great. I bet you thought, ah, you know what? I don't need this. I'm going to go have a beer, but, uh, fantastic, man. We'll keep crushing and, uh, can't wait to see at the Superfinal and congrats on the new job and the new, uh, living accommodations there in Gourdon and say Say hi to the crew, and yeah, man, see you soon.
Yeah, thank you very much. See you soon. Appreciate it. Bye-bye. Bye-bye.
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