The Grand Final of Task 3

Tuesday’s pure economy task had one of the most exciting endings we’ve seen in a FAI championship, when the two world champions and top contenders Mathieu Rouanet (Ozone Viper / PAP Top 80) and Ramon Morillas (Advance Epsilon/ PAP Top 80) glided together from the mountains down to the deck, performed a perfect syncro spiral, killed their engines off at the same time and landed almost simultaneously on the 2 parallel dianas on the ground, with still some fuel in their tanks. A beautiful display of sportsmanship.
The pair had flown for 5 hours and 47 minutes using the strong thermals around the north ridge of Shi San Ling, where many of the competitors had been soaring during the task. 25 pilots were able to stay in the air longer than 2 hours, then the group was slowly reduced as the clouds hid the sun and thermals got more difficult to find. After 4 hours there were only 10 paramotors in the air; then, it was a question of 2.
Ramon Morillas explains:
“There was a big cloud hiding the sun so pilots were leaving the ridge. I was going to leave too, but I still had fuel in my paramotor so I started the engine and looked for more lift. Mathieu and a Nervures yellow glider did the same. It was rough and turbulent up there. I spent some time using the motor, stopping it, starting it again, until two good thermals came and we could stay high with the engine off. Mathieu and I were the only ones flying by then until it was about time to go the LZ (which closed at 5:30pm). We’ve flown together many times with Mathieu and we have a similar flying style. We were coming down and at one moment we looked at eachother and we did just as we always do when we do exhibitions or fly together, we don’t need to say anything: we just came closer and did a syncro spiral. It came out naturally! Then we killed the engines and we both landed only a minute or so before the closing of the task. We both were very happy. Mathieu is a good friend and a great person, he is a good sportive competitor. And it was a good task, I only missed some more Spanish pilots flying until the end with me! The Championship is going well, considering how it started. It’s going a bit slowly compared to other competitions, but it seems to be improving. I’m enjoying it!”

The total time of Mathieu was 5:47:35 while Ramon’s was 5:47:04. Mathieu won the task by 1 point!