Hi there, everybody. Welcome to another episode of the Cloud Base Mayhem. I was incredibly fortunate to be in France at the Targason World Cup last week and got to sit down with Julian Garcia. We had some pretty challenging weather, even though they were able to pull off four pretty amazing tasks. We had a few days off and sat down with Julian on one of those. I got to know Julian because he and I both bombed out from a pretty good position going into end of speed on the last day of the Superfinal. I didn't pull it off and got to walk out together and sit down and chat for a while and was a little blown away then with his job. I obviously knew that he coached the French team, but his history is pretty interesting. He's been at this for a long time. He was a coach of the juniors team for a long time and products like Maxime Pinot and Charles Gazeau and many other names you know.
And he was the head there at Polyspor, which is in Targasons, the Olympic Training Center. It's one of the Olympic Training Centers for France and paragliding is a sport you can go do there and learn how to eventually make the French team, hopefully, and be one of the best of the best. The French are obviously doing this at a level that very few other countries are or even close to. There was a triple podium there in Targason with Maxime and Honorin and Baptiste. And this is something we see. And it's because of people like Julian. He's got an amazing job. He flies around the world with the team and coaches them and trains them and gives a talk before every task on strategy and weather and FTV and final glide.
And he was incredibly articulate in how he thinks about flying and strategy and really good performance. And I learned. I was. Mostly in awe through this whole conversation about where they are operating compared to certainly where we are here in the States. And I imagine where most other countries are operating when they take this professionally. It's a professional sport. They're gaming for the podium. They don't care about much else. And they're gaming for excellence. There's a lot the rest of us could all learn. So and I also didn't know this. He was both part of Maxime's team. In the Red Bull X-Alps as well as Ellie Eggers. So he was at home on his computer.
It sounded like it was pretty traumatizing in some ways knowing the risks that they were taking. But he was help helping both of them route through the Alps in their race, you know, keeping them on good lines and away from storms. And it was pretty stormy, especially a few of the days going around Mont Blanc. And so he was very instrumental in both of their success. So that was pretty fun to learn about as well. So talk about all these things and much more. But yeah, prepare to be a little odd. Enjoy this conversation with Julian Garcia, the coach of the French team. Cheers.
Julian, nice to have you on the show. I don't get to do these in person very often. So it's nice to be sitting with you here in France. We should be flying, but it sounds like that's coming.
Yeah, thank you very much, Kevin. I'm really happy to be in front of you, too. I heard a lot of good things you did for the community and I'm fine with your books and your podcast, obviously.
Thank you. It's an honor. It's a good giver behind this. You're making me blush.
It was quite an honor to bomb out with you. We had quite a good day, but we didn't quite make it in down at the Superfinal on the last day and walked out of a rather impressive state. I don't know if you knew this. I think that was the owner of Corona that had that. It's amazing. You knew that. Yeah, it was amazing. I've never been
in there. I really thought that we would win this task at some point. Yes. We were in a nice position and then we weren't. Yeah, it's going to be 90 or something. Yes. But anyway, good story. Yeah, this ranch was definitely fabulous. It
was impressive. Wow. Amazing. But it was also nice to sit with you and understand. Dan, a little bit more about your history. We want to talk about the French team and your coaching and the juniors program and all that because I think people are very interested in that. Ellie and I were talking earlier. Ellie Agger is sitting right next to us, those of you who are listening, and we were talking about that I don't think any other nation has a program like this. So the world is very interested in it and you're the man to talk about it. But I thought before we get there, it'd be nice to know about your own flying history. Where did you start? How did you get into it? And what brought you here?
Yeah, actually, both questions are kind of linked because I'm a product of the French Federation myself. I used to live in the valley. We are just standing right now here and I got very lucky because here was the famous police working so I could see them from my windows and flying. And for sure. I had some ideas really early on and I managed to get into some initial courses and then to get myself accepted there at the police for it's already 20 oh no, it's 25 years from now.
I'm flying now. Yeah, I'm turning 40 this year. It seems so.
Yeah, it happens whether we want it to or not. Wow. Wow. And you have two kids.
I have three. Three. That's right. Three girls. No, only boys. Three boys. Yeah, you do boys. I do. Only two boys. Obviously, it's a lot of work. So my life is kind of ordinary most of the time, like a family guy. And what is a bit more extraordinary is my job, obviously, because, as you said, I think it's quite unique. It's again because of the French system. So I grew up as a teenager and as an athlete at the police bar. Then I wanted for some more. So I went to France in the competing with the guy back in time. Never was really successful. I would say that in the competition scene,
still, I learned a lot and I was studying sport at the university at the same time. And I knew since the beginning that I would want to be coached. Well, paragliding. And I even tell my coach back in time here at Polesport that the best job I could find was basically his.
So when he retired, I took
over. And what was the initial catch? Was it just looking out your window or did your family was your family into the into flying and did you come from a history of flying or was it just you said you saw it out your window and got interested?
Yeah. I
was interested.
And it's true that my father was also a leisure flyer, not for very long. It's kind of crazy luck because he would have flown maybe for two or three years. It was just enough for me to get involved and to get the initial support. And then he stopped quite almost fastly, I would say. And I just follow it anyway. I was completely hooked and I was already in the program. Of the French Federation. So they allowed me a lot. And this system allowed me to to be myself as a sportman,
adult and a coach, I would say. And when you say the Polysport, is that where we went yesterday? That's the it's the where the tracks and the training system. It was all built for the Mexico Olympics. Yeah.
Polysport is a word that says a group of all of promise. OK, youngsters. Nice. And they are police. It's a really different sport in France that are recognized like high level sport. So basically there is a commission that means once a year stating which sports are interesting or not to to finance and to help. And paragliding, obviously, is one of them. We are lucky for that. They consider it seriously and they support it. So the French Federation had the brilliant idea in
1907, so quite a long time ago, to put a polysport paragliding there in for where we were yesterday and it's where all started on the first session. A famous name is Shankar. He was part of the audience. Yeah.
And you call it what do you call it? Is it the juniors team or is it what is it called at that stage?
Not that stage. It was it has always been a polysport. OK. Yeah. We don't. We have a
name. OK. OK. So we had Charles on the show. He talked about it a little bit. But you you go to the school for what? Is it also academics? Is it is it just flying? Is it theory? Is it strategy? What do you learn there? It's a normal school,
completely normal curriculum, meaning that you won't have a single hour less than any other student in France. But this school is a bit special because there are many sports. You can do as an athlete yourself. And here they will help you with nutrition. You will have your coach. You will have a group in many sports, ski, wrestling, swimming, whatever, and also paragliding. So basically you join this group. You are part of a group of teenager paraglider, one of the competition pilot. You have a nice coach, nice support and you try to make the best progress you can. And
it's just XC race to goal type racing or is it acro and other stuff?
No, exactly. In France, the only recognized as high level discipline is the race to goal type, the cross country. And you were 18 when you enter? I was probably less 17, but it's possible to enter as low as 14. It was the case, as example, for Simon Mettetal. OK. He's a famous. Oh, the French team youngster. It's possible to enter really young, but because we have a university of sport next to the to the complex, it's also possible to get there at 20,
21. And how do you how do you get in? Is it an application? Is it a recommendation? Do you have to have other
accommodations that you've gotten somewhere else?
You do an application form and then you pass a test for a full week. We invite every every pilot wannabe for one week at the very exact same complex. We show them what it is. So here is the room to sleep. Here is the food. Here is the site. We test every single student and then we decide who could enter or not for the next
season. And what you mentally test or what are you testing?
Yeah, technically, mentally. Project parent support, which is really important also. So we also have interviews with the parent school level is also really important because for sure, if you are already low on school level point of view, it won't get any better with 20 hours more training or a week. So, yeah,
many things we test. And if you if you are accepted into the poly sport, then in two years in, you decide I would like to switch to wrestling. Can you do that? If you're in you're in the sport that you were accepted in.
Yeah, exactly. You are in the same sport. If you want to change, you pass the test. It happens. In fact, I got a hockey player that passed the test as paragliding and succeeded and went to the sport for two years, actually, and he was there at first for hockey, ice hockey. OK, so, yeah, everything can happen for sure. But well, it's
it's not the
main case.
So you're a freshman or whatever they call it here in the first year. What are you learning in the paragliding side? What's the what does the curriculum look like? The
first year, the most important is that we will finish your education as a pilot, I would say. So we will learn you to take off and and and safe to build some flight plans, safe flight plans, short technical instruction in terms and it can be as low as this. So making sure that the the whole curriculum as a normal pilot, autonomous pilot, a lot of exercise about being autonomous in the sky is completely built strong, no weak point anywhere with wind, with drift, with whatever, you know, and once this is done, we add the the competitive game.
So depending on the profile and on your level at entrance, it can take more or less time to check that you are actually ready to to go bigger, not to go on some other game and race game. So and the goal is World Cup. Well, yeah, the end of the
what what we have done as best is to have in the police force some World Cup medalist. So that's not only an entrance of the World Cup, but getting a podium. OK, so that was extremely rare. It was the case for Simon Pellissier, Meryl Delferriere, some others, Simon Metteta, Loïse Goutany, they managed. But for sure, it's it's extreme scenario. So the world's main objective is to educate people to competition to the point where we could finish the job in the Alps, because we know that at the end of the day, they will finish their studies somewhere else because it's only an institute. So it's a low level graduation and then they will need to to build more experience.
OK, so this program, the police is a four year program. Yeah,
OK. Four year or three year, depending on the project, depending on where when they are exactly or age they were when they joined. And then most of them will finish their curriculum in whatever, as an engineer or whatever. OK, so
then it'd be the expertize, your career more more so than flying. Exactly. OK. So you would kind of dual major, we would call it at home. You would have a major in flying and you'd have a major in engineering or chemistry or whatever. OK.
Yeah. So this structure, Paul Espoir, is the initial part of the iceberg that will guide you to the highest level as possible. And the last part is in the Alps. It's called the Paul France. It's not Paul Espoir. There is no more hope. Now you now we talk about performing and this is in the Alps. This is now run by Charles Cazot, who is in charge of this. Yeah. And this is where we
are willing to finish the job. And so that's where you're putting the final touches. Is that where you're doing a lot of SAB and what is that? What does Charles side look like?
Yeah, we can do some SAB sooner for sure. But then once you are out from the Paul Espoir, the curriculum is much more autonomous because what will happen, every student will be in a different university anyway. It will be much more harder to gather them. So the schedule is more, OK, we are going to fly in two days. Who is coming? We take the bus. We take Charles. There is a training plan and we follow the training plan. We fly all together and we back home. It's much more hard to say in some way friendly and easy. And but it also requires putting good pilots with really good pilots and learning.
Exactly. Whereas in the Paul Espoir, in the same time, it's really, really the routine is really strong because it's every week look like another one. As example, we are flying on Wednesday and on weekends, every Wednesday, every weekend is dedicated to fly. And then there is theory for hours a week. So it's Tuesday and Thursday and then sport again or the sport on Thursdays and Tuesdays. And it runs like something because everybody is on the same place. And it's really easy
to gather when you say other sport like cross training, physical training and just doing other balance. And exactly. OK, just developing as an athlete.
Yeah, yeah. The evolution, the evolution of sport now is getting a bit complicated with the weight. And we are we are more and more training with weightlifting, in fact, just because we try to protect some problem in case of crash. We also try to protect some issue wearing all the kilos we need to to fly. So I must admit that we switched it for from something quite easy cardio and
into something that is a bit nastier with weight. How
many? I think you said 12. But is that right? Is it 12 people a year go into the program? Yeah, it's an average. Oh, yes. OK,
the maximum had been 18, 18. It had been a nightmare. It had been way too much. Eighteen people, imagine on a daily basis to handle. Yeah. Keep in mind that they are not over 80 people, 18 people aged. They are they are minor of age. Not really. So they enter when they are 14, as example. So you are the second father in a way. Because, oh, this is high school.
Then this is 14, 18. Yeah. Yeah, sorry. I thought it was a university, which we would call kind of 18 to 22
college. College. This is after is a possibility only in sports. Got no other curriculum. So it's a really tiny, tiny part of those students. The major part of a student is below 18, are below 18. And then suddenly their father, they are sleeping. At the institute. Yeah. And if there is any problem, what would they call them? Well, OK, then
you sure. So this is kind of a we would call that a boarding school. Yeah. You go away to learn. OK, or go away because you're a problem. Yeah. Interesting. If you ever done since 97, then have you ever looked back at the statistics on those who started and ended up as podium pilots?
Yeah. You
know what? Is it 50 percent to 20? No, it's
much less for sure than 20. But it's actually a bit more up to 10. So it's pretty good. It's as if we are talking about
getting recognized by the sport ministry as a high level pilot. So it means that you have achieved decent results in your career. As example,
the criteria right now is to be part, if I'm not mistaken, of the top 20 on the junior WPRS ranking system. Yeah, pirate ranking system. Then they give you a condition of being a real athlete. No. OK. And about 10 percent of students managed to to get. I mean, there's a lot of French in that top 20. Yeah, exactly. So it must be working. Yes, it's kind of working, definitely. But, you know, the important thing is that this formation is not only about medals, podiums and in the end, the high level.
We have plenty of students that follow life into paragliding industry in a way or another, being instructors, being. We are also a designer for Ozone. We have three or four design for super. We have we have plenty of guys that, OK, did not achieve medals, but they are not lost for the system and look at myself as example. I mean, I didn't achieve and manage to grab a medal realistically, but I managed to learn some stuff into coaching paragliding. And the job has been decent, we would say on the last years. And thanks to the to the sport
as well. Tell me about your own progression through. So you started young, you got into the program. When did you make the switch to coaching? And you said you didn't have the results. You know, you you're in a perfect position to understand why you're teaching these people. So what was it that that you if you saw saw you coming up through the program again, what would it be? Exactly.
It's it's getting really personal. It's not getting now. But in fact, you're right. In a way, I become a coach to to fix something I believe was missing when I was a student. And I always have been an impulsive person, quite having
difficulties to control my mind and my temper. And I have attacked every single good position I had in any race when I was a kid. Like, you know, and I had many because technically it was not so bad. And then the stuff the game for me was, OK, I'm higher than the others. So I go straight and I try to win this race. And finally, I discovered that maybe paragliding is not that simple, in fact, because this race are a race to uncertainty. You know, the guy who is in front is the most insecure people on Earth because he doesn't know nothing at the moment of the rest of the race, you know, all the way out where the next term is.
Is this cloud cloud working? He's the rabbit is the rabbit. And then suddenly at the back, for sure, if he fails, everybody will have the information. If you succeed, everybody will have the information. And I think that, yeah, in some ways, this could lead to major try error, try error, try error. It's not methodological at all to progress this way. And we I try to to understand a bit why it could work differently to train people and to help them fix this kind of problem. And yeah, in the end, I think I ended up writing stuff and helping people this
way. So I have this problem. What's the fix? What's the short answer fix? When you have the excitement and you don't have the rest, Ogden would call it discipline.
Exactly this discipline. What we discussed, we discussed this exactly with Russ. We're kind of agreed. I call it control, but you call it discipline. Two words that design the exact same stuff. It's not a pass mandatory to follow, for sure. Some winners are completely attacking from the beginning to the end. I'm just saying that in a paragliding situation,
it's not possible to have 120 attackers because the optimized line is not that wide. It's just as simple as this. You can attack on the optimum line. Someone can attack at the left, another one at the right. But at the end, there is no 120 option. So some other would like to follow. And yeah, it's at first it's a bit tricky to go to this game. Unfortunately, the most technical guy, the guy that are technically very, very strong, got a lot of good position to attack. And if you fail to understand that they are not all attackable, tactically, not technically, then suddenly you are done because what you will do is you will manage one.
You will manage two, you will manage three. And on the fourth one or the fifth one, you will fail to find the correct core, the group will go elsewhere. And suddenly you will be 80. So
this we work with schemes. Exactly. Schemes. So you go to you. If you analyze your past performance, I'm pretty confident we will find a power scheme that you have. Yeah, you are probably minus you smiling right now. So this is the most
it gives this game give you the most probability to make it right. And something out of the schemes give you the worst probability to make it right. And what we are trying to achieve is keeping the pilot into the most powerful schemes. For sure, it's not the same for everybody. You can't. Ask Honore Amart to fly like Meryl Delferia. But everyone has won and everyone can be the best at their own game. And this is all we try to do.
We were talking on the drive up here that you you helped Ellie and and Maxime in this year's race in the ex-Alps from the ground and gave them strategy and in-air and helped guide them in the in the Alps. And you said something that I thought was pretty interesting. You said you're not a mental coach, but I find that hard to believe because your students and the we always say this is a 90 percent mental game. You're right. There is that there are the technical skills and all the things that go into flying. But like you're talking about there, the schemes and the the probability in the math that's really in the head, right? You're you're you're trying to to maximize that.
And you're flying potential. But it's mostly it's how it's the decision making as the course goes through. So if I would imagine you really are a mental coach, even though you said not, what do you think? Yeah, I still say
no. And I can explain why. In fact, we all we always believe that decision making is is coming from the mind. It's a mistake decision making is not always and only happening for the mind. And I have shortcuts and I use the shortcut. I will try to explain right now. In fact, depending on the situation you are in, you will take a different decision just because of the situation. It's not much of your brain that is deciding for you, but the situation in itself. I will take an example that you will hopefully easily understand. You are at the takeoff on the X-Arts and and the wind is way too strong, like completely too strong.
There are clouds coming by. It's thunderstorm. It's not good at all. But if you don't take off here right now, right here, you have four hours to go down walking on big rocks to this valley, you know. And if you don't go immediately, your contestant will be gone anyway forever. So isn't it? Suddenly harder to for you to set your mind to say, OK, I resign. But my glider and I go down. It's even more difficult if if your glider is already open and ready to take off. If it's back suddenly, maybe there is a chance, you know.
So certainly the situation we see that it doesn't huge impact on how you can behave and react and decide. And I am a strong believer. That we tend to over overpower the over represents the power of the mind. I really think that in some situation you you will have no trouble doing things correctly and putting good decision. And I think this is my job. I I don't deny the the power of the mentor and the needs of mental coach in some occasion, but in my experience, it's kind of rare when it's needed. It's barely the mental that that block your performance.
It's more the situation where you put yourself in.
And I feel like you're kind of articulating flow in a different way. You're tapping into what you know how to do anyway. You're subconscious. Let it do the work. So is that more or less, you know, the don't think do.
Yeah, exactly. Don't think do because doing is is anyway thinking in a way these are inspired by ecological theory of the spirit of the mind and of this decision of making. We need to stop considering the human brain as a computer that is treating information and making decision, it's not working like that. And it has been proved many times by different studios. They are automatic reaction that are actually taught. I mean, acting. Acting is a thought already there. There is no need for treatment. There is no need for a black box deciding. And again, the the situation is is helping you.
I will provide a very, very concrete example. You are in front of the hardest transition in the world. So it's a canyon. They are polar and everywhere and they are crocodiles and rivers. And it's very, very ugly. The wind is completely shitty and everything is really, really wrong. You have the best light of the world. You are really good. Technically, everything is good. And then suddenly you see by cradle more passing or Max, you know, and they are trying to to pass this transition together. If you do it by yourself, at least for myself, with my skills, there is 100 percent chance I will fail.
And I will die into the crocodiles. But suddenly, if they are close by, they are sinking. I have the best rider of the world. I'm OK. Technically, I followed them and at the debriefing when I will be asking the whole how was it to pass this this transition, which transition? Yeah, I don't even notice it. No, I followed Max or Krigor or whatever. You know, so what is the decision now? It's important. And to also see this way, the situation you are in is also saving a lot of hassle
in some occasions. Interesting.
You talked about Merrill and Hanno and having different skills. How do you as a coach adapt to the different little or sometimes, I guess, bigger differences? How do you help them? And what are the what are the things you're looking for to be a good coach to different people? You
need to know their strong point, like to know them by heart, strong and weak. So I like to know that I, I see exactly where they will, where they risk nothing at all. The situation where this is fixed, they have it forever. They will succeed no matter what. But I also know in which situation they are suffering and having a lot of trouble. These situations are not the same, neither a strong point, neither a weak point, neither for Merrill, neither for Hanno. But at least I know when it will produce good results, life and when it won't and when it will fail.
And I do that for each of the athletes. And
I'm I stopped thinking that there is a better way. There are no better way. There are personal way. So one can be world champion with one way and the other one can be world champion with another way. So I am not interested at all about how they do it. It's surprising. I don't care about how they do it. I just observe what's working for them and make sure that they keep doing where they are. The best the same stuff over and over producing
the scheme. So you've talked about strengths and weaknesses. Is it more important to focus on strengths or fixing weaknesses? It's much more important than staying in your
strength. So this in paragliding, this debate is is over already, because if you never it's not about having the super, super strength that nobody have. But it's it's more on no weakness at all. It's much more. It's more about never quitting what you know you can do perfectly. And if he if you focus on that exactly and try to destroy every stuff that can divide you from what you are usually achieving good for sure, you can be really far and go really far in the in the progression.
So I don't know if I'm really clear, but yeah, it's neither reinforcing strong points, neither reinforcing weak points. The thing is, the main thing is to never break the usual stuff you are producing and never go into your weak point. So I will make an example more clear because I think it's really theoretical. But the second you will ask me to lead a task. The at the very second. Second, you will have Trump. You will have big trouble because it's not part of her game at all. So, OK, one transition is OK. More or less, she will manage. But then he starts overthinking it.
She worries about making a mistake. It's not even that she got stressed because she can like it. It's just that it's not nice. Yeah, it's not all of the performances produce or with images. She's always afraid. And at the very same time, what's crazy is that the world is a super pilot. He wants plenty of task. But if he starts from a really specific situation, I can say from the beginning that it's not going to happen today and the situation is a bit detached from the from the group lower with real attackers attacking all the.
The days in front of him don't push too hard. Yeah, he will get nervous and he will try to to push most of the time he'll manage. But anyway, the fact for him to not being able to win this task right now will be overwhelming. And at the end and I don't think he he managed many tasks like that. It's not his way of of creating performance. If you tell him to just control everything and just turn. His style, he will get really, really upset because he don't feel like he grab boys leading boys and suddenly he gets tense, tense, tense. And then Trump can occur. Or
I got to see you work a couple of times lately, but especially down in Castello, because I was always setting up next to you and I really wish that I could speak French because you would talk every day to all the French team and all the French pilots, I think most of them. So I'm going to ask you a question. You've been fighting a long time. What are you saying? What are you talking about?
Oh, it's really it's a routine. So it's very easy to to describe. First thing is we make a point on the weather, the weather forecast. What is expected today or it's important or it will affect the task, the current task. Then we discuss a lot of where we are in the competition because it's really important. Is it this day?
No, no trouble. Final task, first task. But when you
say we but specific to different people or just in general?
No, in general. OK, so I talk to the whole group and the discussion is open. Obviously, everyone can can speak and try to to figure out where we are in this competition or it will affect the current task, because obviously if it's this day and a lot of guys have nothing to lose, probably it will attack a bit more. The rhythm will be a bit more faster. If some guys already discarded a lot, it's this day. They don't want to risk so much, too much so they can they can have conflict. It's it's really useful to get the tactical insight of the of the situation. Then we go through the task, obviously, what what is going to be done today.
And yeah, we discussed the option. We plan the final flight, which is really important. The final flight.
Yeah, that's about it. But I think the discussion are good to get some focus. The fact that it's a routine, it's just something you do no matter what. It helps also reducing the uncertainty and it helps the pilot to get right into the zone. And before take off your
own back to your own personal journey with this, you were coaching for what were the years you were coaching? I'm sorry, I didn't get what what were the years you were coaching for the poly team because you're not doing that now, correct? No,
I thought as far I have been eight or nine years. Can't remember, but I quit in two thousand twenty one at the police bar. OK, so the youngsters we are talking and now I'm in charge of the guys, the French team, the older guys. And I'm still in in charge right now. And it's been since
three years, almost three years. And what what does that look like as a job now? You go to all the World Cups, you do the trainings with Charles. What is it, full time, year round?
Yeah, but coaching is only the the small tip of the iceberg, I would say, because this is the fun part where you go to go with the team and fly and coach and have them hopefully getting better. But the whole job is more about structuring the the high level of the sport nationally. So we discussed about police where we discussed about both phones, both to do one in the other in the community that are helping us to to provide talents. But we are orders regionally speaking. And I'm in charge. I'm in charge of the whole project, responsible for the whole project. So I work with the coaches.
I work on the budget. I have a really, really interesting administrative life, like desk office job. Unfortunately, probably.
But it seems like you're having fun. It's not me. It's a cool thing to be around this kind of level and helping people achieve. It's one of the best things ever.
And it's a very good balance, being honest, because I am a fairly mini man, as you know. So at the moment you are home and working on papers, then suddenly you're the perfect father, father, you go to school with the kids and it's easy. And at some point I also need to go really wide with the guys and put myself in the air with them and and go on some competition. And I love this. But it's Ellie
was telling me yesterday when we were doing some training that she spent some time with you at some point in the world in the middle of the world. She hurt her ankle and got to ride around with you in the car and watched you work. That's fascinating to me. I mean, the U.S. team, we've never had anything like that. We don't have a coach. You're doing it totally on your own, even at the Worlds. They're not really working together. We don't know how that we haven't learned these skills. So I think. Many people listening would love to know, what are you telling the pilots in the air and what are you how are you helping them from the ground? Is it is it just weather observations? Are you talk? Are you giving them where other people are? What are you identifying that's helping the pilots in the air?
Yeah, as we discussed, I help them mostly to keep into their strong skin. So I provide all the information you mentioned. It can be for sure weather, but it's mostly mostly life tracking information. We had a super nice addition on the last edition. It was a super powerful long glass. I don't know if it's the correct word in telescope telescope. Yeah. And I was able to match live the observation with the life tracking, getting more and more accurate. And you could, as example, say at the final glide, if there are some birds or either. It's super powerful tool, really. So I basically try to find the right scenario for for the team at the at the briefing, so before the task and then we work all together to put this scenario into life during the task, helping each other's
sharing the right information. So this scenario could be a reality, basically, or radio protocol is not secret. And it's really the asking me before what we were sharing, because for sure, it's not really obvious to say in such case or attackers are announcing the value, the over the volume in front, because it's very, very important for the other that are at the back to know what's the next value is the poor. So they know if they can continue to speed up or if the value is not really good, it means that they have time. So it's this theory of control that is really important, I would say.
So the pilots are reporting back as well. They're everybody's part of the part of the flock. Exactly. So you're all on one channel or are you able to talk to somebody independently? Everybody's on one channel. Yeah. And
and it's not that they can. And it's a mandatory stuff if you don't do it. Then you will have trouble because all the teammates will say that we don't have the info is
known. So
this is important. And for the people at the back, they are in charge and responsible for announcing the options, tactical options they are seeing because they are the best position to talk about what they see and what the race look like. Yeah, I'm seeing a gin boomerang red attacking to the left. OK. And we got rid of all confirmation received. Well received because it's an overkill and we work this way, trying to keep the scenario and the strong scheme to everybody.
And then are there in the Argentina world two years ago that Russ won? I talked to quite a few of Saab and Russ and Jockey and the it didn't start off this way. But when it started looking like like Russ had a pretty good chance. But even even quite early on, there was people were really assigned roles. You know, OK, you're going to be the rabbit. You're going to be flying with Russ. You're going to be staying back and give the information like you're talking about. Will the French team do the same? What are their assigned positions? In other words, OK, Arnaud's got the best shot to win in the world. We're going to sport on period. Or is it? Is it more? Whoever can win, go for it.
No, no, it's at first. For sure, every pilot, individual pilots want to be world champion. And in the French team, many of them are good chance to achieve that. So for sure, you need to let them express. But again, you want them to express themselves on their strong point. So I insist a lot on this. For sure, you cannot talk to him and tell him, OK, you will fly on the second group today because it will be useful for the team. It won't work like that because it won't be world champions. So, you know, it will attack. So then you can choose a team. You are not obliged to put your team with three attackers or four attackers and go all in every day. It's not mandatory. So you choose wisely. We have Meryl that is in a different game completely.
And we are very lucky to have her because she scored big points as a girl and secure a lot of tasks. And then I made the choice to put Pierre as an example. Because I know his strong points are actually really tactical. He flies the gaga really well. Like maybe comparing to Aaron, Giorgati or to Joachim or Berroza, people that fly in front, but not attacking every single position and are really smart in a group. So it was my my choice as an example. And then this game of assigning role to to every people in your team will come a bit later with the task because soon you will realize that these people have no chance of winning.
These guys maybe has a chance of winning. And then you you play the scenario. You tend to to create a scenario that will bring you some medals. This is what you what you do. And I'm quite sad for some country when I see them flying. They have a chance of medal and they don't even really defend it. You know, the poor girl could be two or first, but she's alone and the team mate, they want to be tense. Yeah. You know, we just don't work like this at all. It's nonsense for us. Tense, it's nothing. It's not worth it. We will defend the girl anyway, or we will defend the guy. And we we are playing this game.
We defended every week. We managed to be one. Two, three and two top women because we defended every single position every day, not because we left the people to fight
on their own. Yeah. Fascinating. OK, X-Alps, leave this this part for the end. I didn't know this, that you were that you were helping Maxime and Ellie. What does that look like? That's fascinating to me. So you talk about the intensity of it. It sounded like it was quite intense for you. Just being on that side and being responsible in a lot of ways for for some of the decisions that they were making is scary in that race. Yes, it is.
I think it's hard for people to realize what could be your contribution if you are not on the on the terrain, because you imagine that the X-Alps would be something really practical. And you need to be really close to the athlete. And we didn't make this. Choice. We made the choice of trying to have some external help remotely. So that was my job making the job is rooted basically. So trying to root the athletes and give them information live. So does it work? You you are in front of a computer in front of your desk and you are playing with your friends who are basically risking their life more or less and tell them how to avoid.
The nastiest situation and how to improve their performance with navigational help. You use every every single new technology you can have to do that. So you have the web counts, you have zero to talk to them, to them live. They can reply to you. So this is a discussion, a live discussion while they are flying. You have the weather forecast, you have the tracking position of everybody. You have the the routing system for the ground and you try to react to help them in the best way you can. The problem is it's it's not a video game you are playing, you're playing with your friends. You are taking decisions that are shared, but it's still you are part of the decision of processing
as things can evolve quite roughly. It can get a bit tense behind the screen. As example, I was counting the thunderstorm. While Maxime was flying near Chamonix and I was counting the distance of the next live thunder I got on screen to his position and at some point we got to decide with Luc Armant if it's close enough or if he can just follow his path. He was requesting information. We went to push him and to encourage him this day. But then suddenly you go to sleep and you say that if the decision is wrong, then it's a mess, isn't it?
Yeah. And it's a very fine line, isn't it? The line is fine. You try to do it as professionally as possible. But for sure, the job is exhausting. I know that the drone pilots that are making wars are affected by kind of a similar syndrome because you're kind of playing to a video game, but it has consequences on the terrain. So, yeah, for sure, I ended up the race. It's crazy to say that because I didn't even run or I didn't even. How can I complain if the athletes themselves, you know, achieve runs and runs and thousands of verticals and they are fine. But I was wasted.
Being a supporter is hard. I think at any level I got to see that. I mean, they get wrecked. They get absolutely destroyed as well. It's tough. Have you done that before, that role?
I trained many times with Maxime, a bit with Eli. I trained live with Maxime on some previous race, obviously. And I always have been around trying to help a bit the athletes. But it was the first time it was so intense. And so to say that, yeah, calculated that I would be in charge of this. So it was the first edition.
Silly question, but one that everybody wants to know is everybody can be beat, of course, even Chrigel. But what would it take for and who would who, in your opinion, has the best shot?
Well, we all believe that Maxime would have a good chance. And I think it's still the case. But it seems that Chrigel is showing that we would need to have a bit of luck with the weather, something a bit smoother, isn't it? Yeah, no, for sure. Realistically, we have again seen Chrigel flying on a different level. And when the conditions were getting nasty and probably at some point infallible for most men, I think the logic of this race is a bit dangerous at some point, because for sure, I don't want to say anything bad on the performance of Chrigel, because everybody can measure it and understand that it's huge.
But if you never give up on any on any silly condition, what happened then? Yeah, I mean, that's a question that can be asked. Maybe the logic of this race is that if you follow the flight, even in the the really big, big, big nightmare condition, you will win it. That's OK. And is that fair? Or I mean, I'm sure even for him, he managed all went good. Of course, he's an exceptional pilot. Probably. Why not? I can accept it better than any other athlete technically.
But still, the logic seems a bit flawed.
I mean, it's it's gotten to the point now where, like you said, your scenario earlier on, it's it's way too strong. There's too many clouds below. It's rocky. It's a nasty. If you don't take off, you are not going to win the race. You have to and you have to keep doing it over and over and over and over. And twenty one was just ridiculous. It was just the flying in absurd conditions over and over and over. And if you don't do it, you don't have a chance. So it's you really roll on the dice. I would think that I would think if we had Chrigel here, he would say he's rolling the dice less than everybody else because he trained so much and that stuff. But you're still rolling the dice. To me, I don't know. You're right. It's a very good proposition.
I think this race is not a competition. It's an adventure. And Chrigel has shown that he's the best paraglider adventure worldwide. When he was on the competition scene, he was anyway the best pilot. Kudos to him. I have a huge respect for what he achieved. It's completely amazing.
I like to remind people that there is a difference between an adventure and a competition on competition. There are institutions and there are rules. And some of the rules are to protect the pilots from themselves on an adventure. It's obviously probably not the case. And yeah, we are amazed by the performance. And it's getting a very popular race, really. Probably the best. The best communicative race around paraglider. But again, it's not something really
trivial that we are watching. We are watching people risking their life basically on the top spot.
So, OK, I respect that. And I went involved into that. And I but
I have this somewhere in my mind. And yeah, I have a lot of respect for the athletes who participated in this kind of
adventure. It sounds like Eli, who's sitting here and Maxime will do it again. Will you support them again? Would you do it again?
No, I won't. I told them both. They know I'm not because for as I said, for me, the
OK, at least for Maxime, it's definitive because it's for the top places and the logic is out to be discussed. For Eli, I think she has proven that it's possible to finish the race staying on the safe side of the of the coin, the of the situation. I think we the whole team did a wonderful job to to make us stay in the rhythm of this race and to avoid the wind and to fly over West Face when it was too rough. And when and we yeah, she managed and and it went not that bad at the front. It was crazy in many occasions. And this I don't I'm not willing to to leave again this
kind of stress and emotion, but I understand why it's fascinating. And I will follow the race probably, but with less responsibility.
And that's something that we try to I think we did a better job this year from the reporting side, which I had never done to to bring more of that to the audience. But when people don't understand the day that Maxime landed in the wind and Damien flew his incredible flight, it was so far from recreational conditions. You can't I mean, I don't think people understand that there were no other pilots out that day, I mean, twenty fifteen when we went through the Matterhorn and there were six of us up at the Matterhorn. No other pilots were up there for a reason. It was wave flying. I mean, it was 60 kilometers an hour up tall. And it was that strong that day down in in the lakes.
I mean, it was incredibly strong and it's another game. That's a pretty wild game.
Man, you are giving me chills again. Yeah, for sure. It's it's seeing the paragliding community is too soft. We've spoken when it comes to talk about risk. We want to enjoy the game and we don't want to to think too much about what we risk here. But if you realize and if you develop all the possible scenario and things go wrong with the wind or with the thunderstorm, you will realize that the paraglider is a very, very little napkin. Yeah, it's it's something that is. It's it's very rudimentary to to cross the Alps. I mean, look at your rescue system.
Maybe you will manage to draw it and maybe it will tackle the glider. If it's suddenly open, you will go goes nowhere. I mean, let's discuss all this to the end. You know, what will you do with your rescue on the power line or on the crazy river? Let's detail it. You know, all all all all what what we witness is because those kind of accidents we we have witnessed in the past, many, many this we don't want to talk much. We want to talk about the fact that they made two hundred or three hundred kilometer and eleven hour flight. That's good. OK. But that was it.
This is not really not to say that it doesn't sell. It's not really funny.
Yeah, I really think that we we need to to explain more the risks. Yeah, yeah.
I don't I don't think that I know it doesn't it just doesn't come across. You get the numbers and it's eleven and a half hour flight and it's two hundred sixty, you know, two hundred sixty seven K. But I mean, I was watching the live stuff that day. It was frickin terror. It must have been terrifying to be there. I can't imagine what Damien's head was at the end of that day. It must have felt like he'd gone to it must have been in the ring with Muhammad Ali for eleven and a half hours. That's tough going and hats off to him. It's amazing, but it's also really scary. And the day after was even worse. Yeah, in fact. Yeah. So,
yeah, they are amazing athletes and amazing pilots, amazing person. And I hope they'll manage to get protected as much as really long in their career. And yeah, because this race is definitely something that put them to overstress them a
lot. And so you're going 100 percent and a whole lot of percent beyond. Julian, fascinating, awesome. Wonderful to share all these thoughts with you. And you're very good at articulating it. Thank you very much. Thank you very much, Kevin. Appreciate it. Yeah, me too. If
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