Today is the 3rd day of the official training camp at the Canopy Piloting World Championships in Pretoria, South Africa. About 40 of the expected 70 competitors from 20 countries have arrived and are jumping. The entire Aussie team is now here along with competitors from the UK, USA, Canada, Italy, Belgium, Brazil, Venezuela, Denmark, Spain, Sweden, Finland, Netherlands, and of course South Africa. More and more competitors are arriving every day.
The pond looks fantastic, the red dirt is getting into everything, (there will be no white canopies leaving South Africa, they will all be Salmon coloured!) and the 100m of grassed distance course is already taking its toll on competitors bodies. The dz is at about 4000 feet above sea level and we are seeing lots of really fast and very long swoops. Maha, Chris Teague and Jay have already landed in the sand pit out past the end of the turf. That is more than 160m from the entry gate. The current World Record is less than 160m.
Yesterday I didn't have a very good day of training, I only did 4 jumps and missed every gate. Matt Harris kindly offered to call Qantas and bring my flight forward so I could leave today and cut short my suffering. I told him there was no point, I would miss the flight because I would never be able to find the gate.
I had a better day today..... 
In between training the Aussies have been making the most of being in Africa and catching up with some of the local wildlife. One of the closest parks, Pilanesberg, is less than 2 hours away and Kruger NP is about 5 hours. The Kruger park rangers are more than happy to interrupt their bicycle poacher patrols and chat to the tourists. Not sure how many poachers they catch on those rickety old bikes though. But I reckon they could get the pace going if some of the wildlife were chasing them. They said they only know of 1 ranger being taken by a lion about 20 years ago.
We are all looking forward the next few days of training and the beginning of competition next thursday.
1 comment:
Thanks for the post... lots of folks back here wishing the Aussie team the best. Have fun, be safe, go hard!
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