The favorite competitive game for Acro stars took place on July 25th at the famous “magic mountain” of Organya (Spain), where competitors had to endure a full day of difficult acro tricks and battles to step on the podium. The 13 invited participants put on an amazing show and even higher technical level, for a nail-biting finale between Theo and Tim Alongi.
An added difficulty this year was that the entire comp had to be held in just one day instead of 2, due to the not so good weather forecast for the rest of the week.
After a general briefing given by the event organizer Horacio Llorens -who was finally released from doctors, following an accident at a comp- and head judge Pal Takats, the competition started with the qualifying round. Here, each pilot had to perform a set of manoeuvres in the best possible way. Any mistake would award him a letter of the word ACRO, and immediate disqualification when the word was completed.
Brazil’s Rafael Goberna quitted due to pain in his arms, and two pilots had to execute 3 additional manoeuvres to win the last place in the quarters: Raul Rodriguez finally took it for a tight margin ahead of Mael Porret. The qualifying round took 2 hours to complete, and pilots had a short break before the quarter finals, where the best 8 pilots had to ‘battle’ in pairs.
According to the judge, Pal Takats, “never before we had such a tight and difficult qualifying round in the Acro GAME. It took 11 tricks to select the 8 finalists out of the 13 invited pilots! Surprisingly, I had to give many letters even to some top candidates. The tension was high on both sides and, considering the level, I had to give out letters mercilessly for the smallest mistakes. It is crazy hard, especially because we are all friends. With all the new cabslide, double flip, hardcore, etc. moves, many times I had to use a binocular to make sure that I actually saw the smallest but most important details. Every year these guys are getting into new depths of technicality, it is very inspiring!”
For the final battles each pilot chose his own tricks to challenge his opponent, who had to then perform them. According to Pal, the clue here was to know the opponents’ strengths and weaknesses, besides being well prepared in the maneuvers’ execution. In this phase, new tricks were introduced, like the “hardcore infinity”, the “superstall to infinity” or the “Double Back-Flip Dynamic Stall”, all very demanding and highly technical moves.
The classified pilots that went on to semi-finals were Tim Alongi, Theo de Blic, Victor Carrera and Egor Posokhin. Here, Tim and Theo won over Victor and Egor, and then had to battle for the 1st and 3rd place in the finals: Victor v/s Egor fought for 3rd, with the Chilean ace taking the 3rd place on the podium; while Theo took 1st over Tim (2nd).
Although Russian star Egor could not step on the podium this time, he was awarded best trick of this Acro Game 2019 for his Hardcore Infinity, a difficult trick of a twisted Infinity entry where the pilot twists to the opposite side during the very first turn of the entry . See it on this video:
Hey hey guys! ACRO GAME 2019 is over, I took 4th place and best trick, is on the video. Hardcore infinity tumbling? I happy to had a battles with you guys, thanks for great experiens, and see you next time! I was so close to 3th place, and battle agains @bichocarrera was incredible. Hope you can find it soon in @game.acro page. Im in progression all the time, so lets see… Big thanks @uturn_paragliders for supporting and for the best tool for my new tricks "Joker". Привет всем! Acro Game 2019 завершились не успев начаться) отработали одним днем с 2 часов дня до 9 вечера. Было очень тяжело физически летать столько времени под постоянным давлением, но и в тоже время очень круто. Настоящая битва и самые сложные Акро соревнования в мире. Я на 4 месте и еще забрал с собой победу за лучший трюк! За 3 место батл был очень очень плотным, без явного победителя. Пал до сих пор не уверен что принял правильное решение, что радует меня еще больше) Продолжаю тренироваться и жду с нетерпением следующей бомбической баталии в 2020 году. Видео финалов скоро будет в сети в группе @game.acro Спасибо всем за поддержку! Сейчас остановка на французской дюне, для тренировок вагас стаил и поедем дальше?#AcroGame #besttrick #hardcore #acro #paragliding #uturn #joker
Publicada por Egor Posokhin en Sábado, 27 de julio de 2019
Exhausted but happy, the best pilots landed almost at dusk for the prize giving ceremony of the event, considered the most challenging Acro competition ever.
*Check out more great pictures of Laurent Merle at the Acro Game 2019 here:
+Info: http://acrogame.es/ & https://www.facebook.com/game.acro/
