2011 Belgian Nationals, Day 6, Task 6, task win :-)

Today we woke up with a nice sky and a forecast for possible overdevelopment during the day. We decided to launch from Aspres and take Pic de Bure as a first turnpoint. That's the mountain in the next picture. It's always a thrill to climb up next to the rock faces and it was a first for quite a few competitors today. Everyone loved it:-)

From there, we had to go to Hongrie, then back to Savournon (between St. Genis and Aujour) and then back to the camping. A 90 km task. Here's Carl's launch:

And this is me:

I was a bit lower than many others in the start gate, but decided to take the first after all, because of the risk of overdevelopment. The thermals were booming everywhere and soon we were at Hongrie. There we got stuck for a while and I decided to drift downwind in a weak thermal. It took me in the direction of the edge of the valley and that's where I got a decent thermal again. It allowed me to attach to Aujour and from there it was an easy and fast run in. I was in goal 20 mins ahead of Carl and 25 ahead of Mart (2nd start gate), so I won the day :-) Here's Mart, happy to be in goal:

I will have a big lead in the Belgian Championship now and will be in 3rd overall. Never thought that would still be possible after my bad start to the comp.