The first two days (Friday and Saturday) saw all pilots racing for the best time in order to qualify for the final ‘knock-out’ round. The saturday night leading podium result was:
1st Alex Mateos (Fr)
2nd Mathieu Rouanet (Fr)
3rd Paco Guerra (Sp) – (Last year’s Icarobatix winner)
But the battle was not yet won… the four slowest of the 12 pilots were then eliminated, leaving the remaining eight to go through to the final ‘knock-out’ round on the Sunday.
With an early morning relocation of the event in Lumbin at the foot of the mountain pilots had to race head-to-head in a dual circular race track while picking up and releasing batixballs in each other’s drop zones. The first one to release all their batixballs in their opponent’s drop zone eliminated the other.
After some amazing aerial action from the Parabatix Sky Racing team, who performed in spectacular style, rookie pilotThomas Migneaux (FR) made an incredible last minute catch-up. Despite his slower times during the qualifying round, his air-to-ground batixball skills shone and eventually secured him the winning place and the Icarobatix trophy!
With Mathieu Rouanet (FR) in second and Pavel Brezina (CZ) third right behind, swiftly followed by Laurent Salinas (FR), Alex Mateos (FR), Paco Guerra (SP) and Pascal Vallee (Fr) (current ppg world champion) in seventh.
Some unfortunate luck for Dean Eldridge (UK) who clearly had his goals set for a podium position at the beginning of the event, but after making a mistake during the qualifying rounds found it hard to get back on top.
We would also like to congratulate the other rookie sky race pilots Jérémy Pénone (Fr) et Aurélien Ganaye (FR) for their outstanding performance in their first Parabatix sky race.
Parabatix Sky Race organiser Pascal Campbell-Jones was totally overwhelmed by the whole event. “It’s as close as you’re going to get to real life Quidditch!” he said. “But instead of broomsticks, our pilots fly powered paragliders.”
The level of piloting of these top pilots is incredible. Add to that an outstanding organisational team made up of professionally trained marshals, flight directors, scorers, race director and show coordinators makes the Parabatix Sky Racers a very attractive event.
Even the DGAC (French Civil Aviation), one of the toughest in the world, couldn’t fault the Parabatix organisation, a fact that will open up the possibilities for running the event in other built-up, populated locations.
