В один из дней, на этапе PWC в Колумбии, Marcus Malmqvist на EDGE XR выиграл день. Вот что пишет Marcus:
Well I'll be darned - I won, even after the leadout points!
In the end I was app. 2½ minutes ahead of Yassen [Savov, Ed.], and although he had been leading out a lot during the task it was still enough to win the day. He's a habitual leadout points scorer, but this time it wasn't enough to win him the task :-)
My Overall score was 30th BTW - that is my best Overall in a World Cup to date.
Here follows a short description of the last day:
I've been flying well for the whole week in my own view - but for some reason, getting established in the lead gaggle just kept eluding me. I often caught up with them along the course, but yesterday [last task, ed.] I had decided I wouldn't let them slip away again.
...which they then promptly did. After some 20kms I was somehow out of phase with the thermals, I'd arrive to the thermal right beneath the lead gaggle only to find that it was already dead, and I was forced to go my own way once again. This on the contrary worked really well, and I kept pace with the gaggle from around 1km back, generally staying a little higher than them.
At around 40km from goal the lead gaggle chose a route that surprised me. They took a detour to follow a ridge, but there was a beautiful cloud street going straight to goal. I was already in the zone due to my own route finding and success with it, so I chose the straight way, feeling good about myself. The two routes were different enough that I quickly lost all contact with the others - until out of the blue Yassen and Pepe [Maleck] appeared out of nowhere around 20km from goal - this obviously increased the pace even more! The day was all about lifting lines, and about ignoring the 3m/s thermals in order to find the 5m/s ones!
We stayed together well enough, something quite significant because they're fast lads these two - but the UP will hang onto anything and anyone, if only you push it hard enough! At around 12km from the goal cylinder they both chose to go a bit left whereas I again stayed on the straight line; not just to overtake, but also because I thought the line was better - and it turned out I was right! The last turnpoint was 6km from goal, and when I took it I needed a 8:1 glide to get in, and with big sink in between the lifty lines there was plenty of risk involved.
Yassen took the turnpoint a few seconds before me, but I was higher and got a much better line than the other two - cruised into goal after having climbed at 1-2m/s for the last few kms, while the others were still needing to climb a bit behind me.
Never have I experienced such exhilaration! I was in Total Overdrive, shaking all over from excitement and adrenaline; would I get in, would I win??
That was it then - I did. And everybody is incredibly nice here, congratulating me as if it was the comp and not just a task I won. What a flight!
Thanks to UP and Mads for lending me this incredible wing!
Источник: рассылка UP International
