Red Bull X-Alps 2005

The torture is finally over. 17 teams had started, four actually reached their goal. After 800 kilometres in little more than 12 days the Swiss Alex Hofer won the Red Bull X-Alps 2005.

The big moment came on Saturday, August 13 at 11 a.m. Alex Hofer, the winner of the Red Bull X-Alps 2005 glided down from Monte Gros, landing with amazing precision at Monaco port on a swimming landing site which was hardly any bigger than his parachute. He had covered 800 kilometres through the European alps by parachute and on foot.

Red Bull X-Alps is the toughest and most difficult paragliding race in the world. On August 1, 17 paragliders had taken off from the Dachstein glacier in Austria – their goal: Monaco. Each athlete was backed by a partner who provided food, drinks, navigation and some moral support, while travelling by car.

The athlete’s mode of travel was much more arduous by comparison. They had to cover as much distance by paragliding, while walking or running the remainder of the stretch – mainly uphill. On average, they covered more than forty kilometres a day on foot. Adian Toase (GBR) and Toma Coconea (ROM) each achieved a daily record of 90 kilometres. Helmut Eichholzer from Austria succeeded in completing the longest flight in the race with unbelievable 187 kilometres. And, of course, they managed to sleep a bit – about four hours a day.

Once Hofer touched the landing area with one foot, there were still 13 athletes in the race. According to the rules they had 48 hours from this moment on to reach the goal. Three further athletes used this time to their advantage: Urs Lötscher and X-Alps winner in 2003 Kaspar Henny from Switzerland as well as Helmut Eichholzer from Austria. For the other ten teams the race ended somewhere between the Dachstein and Monaco.

X-Alps is tough and demanding. Hannes Arch, the organizer of the race says: "We want to show what a person is capable of achieving with minimum equipment." He is able to achieve quite a lot. For instance, several athletes succeeded in crossing the Swiss Furka pass in the middle of the night – in a snow storm with freezing temperatures. There were also strong turbulences on the final stretches in France. And at the finish line Helmut Eichholzer spoke quite graphically about blisters on top of blisters.

This year it was possible for the first time to track all of the athletes with a “live tracking” feature throughout the entire race. Thousands of fans took advantage of this via Internet so that they always knew which athlete was fighting his way forward at any given location. The best photographs and video-cuts as well as all the news can be found on the homepage of the event.