Revoluttion 2009 - the first Spanish Acro Championship

A report about the Revolittion 2009 competition by Raul Rodriguez Acro World Champion and winner of the first official Spanish Acrobatics Paragliding Championship:

RR - "Finally after 10 years competing we had our first national acrobatics paragliding championship in Spain. It was the first weekend of September in the Sant Antoni Lake in La Pobla de Segur, Lleida.
The lake is one and a half hours away from Organya where all the participating pilots were training the previous weeks before the championship. In these trainings we could see the level of the new spanish acro talents. For me and the rest of the SAT pilots it was surprising to see that many of these pilots controlling perfectly their manouevres, their drifts and management of altitude. Still, two of the pilots had to use the rescue parachute in the last days of trainings...

At the Sant Antoni Lake it is only possible to fly by towing. Here is the place of the Entrenuvuls team, where they work making SIV courses all summer long. They are true professionals in towing pilots over water. It is the same crew who towed us in France during the last Acrolac competitions as well.
The judging team was composed of a head judge, our good friend from Argentina, Martín Cima “The Galle” and we had two new spanish student judges, Jordi Moreno and Felix Rodriguez (Papa Rodriguez) and furthermore Pablo Lopez was helping the work of the the judges.

The competition began with the selection run for the pilots who never competed before, with simple manouevres like Wing overs, SAT, Full Stall and Helico. Not all of them made perfect manouevres but there were no risky situations so finally all pilots passed this safety selection.

First run, free program with four manouevres. Horacio and I put the same program: Tumbling, Infinit, Twister, SAT-Helico. Alex Rodriguez and Javi “Malaguita” - who recently mastered the Infinity Tumbling - could set their programs at a high level as well: Tumbling, Infinit, Helico, Helico. Felix stayed a bit more conservative with his routine: Infinit, Helico-SAT, SAT-Helico, Misty Flip. Of the rest of pilots Francois Ragolski (French pilot) was the only in putting top manouevres and Rythmic SAT and Infinit. The others ensured their manouevres without risking Tumblings. Horacio finished first in the run, I was second in front of Alex (third) and Javi (fourth). This two youngsters came up with perfectly controlled tricks and Alex got the best ground spiral and raft landing of the day, however he didn’t get more points than Horacio and me who just landed normally on the raft with a negative spin. Felix did a good program but his manouevres gave less points so he was placed fifth with just a few points behind, with Francois (sixth) following us very near. But those who surprised us were Charlotte Lee (the girfriend of Felix) seventh, and Manuel Tejeiro “brother Malaguita” making eighth place, both flew very well. Also the little Malaguitas Brother David Tejeiro with 16º place. In this run we saw many of the pilots that never had competed before being nervous in the situation which affected their performance to execute the manouevres. But all flew with safe with high security and that is the most important.

The third and last run, free program with four manouevres. The first places were all very close with just a few points differences. A bad exit from a manouevre, a bad landing can decide the final result. With almost same programs than in the previous runs we made our best maneuvers (or almost) but again the landings made the bigger difference. Felix won the run again, but could not catch better positions in the general. I made second to few decimals of Horacio, so finally I won the championship. Horacio was third in the run and overall second in the competition. Alex did a better run that Javi but couldn't take him over in general. In this run Renan Moral does the best punctuation of the new Spanish acro pilots with a deserved eighth place.
We have to thank enormously to the organization team of Oscar Atillo with all his friends and assistants of the festival of Orduña that helped us a lot. Also thanks to the sponsors that supported us in all this: Paragliding Catalan Federation, Spanish Aeronautical Federation, SAT team, Entrenuvuls Team, Mikel Lazaro…
All pilots and organizers were all very happy with our first national championship, and we can't wait for next year's edition!"
Raul Rodriguez

Thank you Raul for sharing your memories and congratulations!