Phew! and rest.

Sorry for all the silence this last 9 days. It's just been busy, busy, busy!! The final two days of the European Championships certainly shuffled the scores up. The final day was 141k triangle over some incredible high mountain terrain. Thermal strengths so strong at times that you simply held on to your wing until you pinggend out at the top of the World.

I found myself in gaggle 2, chasing the leaders like mad and all of us flying at break neck speed.

Whenever gaggle 1 would take a climb, we'd be chasing under them or their thermal as they would peel off the top! The final leg of the task found us at 3000 meters crossing a wall of Alpine granite that drops 2000 meters off a cliff into Abtenau. It took your breath away as the world fell from beneath you.

More importantly, our final glide looked a long 15k at 10:1 and as we came over the valley I noticed the lead gaggle starting to land short of goal, others disburst in all directions in search of lift. My mind switched on....... get a thermal!! the valley is sinking!! I headed to the final turnpoint and aimed at the sunny spur that offered a bleep or two. I saw Russ take a turn on route so raced at him as he peeled for goal, I took a turn, then did the same. My route in to goal was tracing contour lines, then tree lines, then fence line, then curb stones and one foot to clear the final hill with a sigh of relief to glide over the goal line and get a brilliant 29th place.

My overall final position is also 29th which I'm very pleased with and can now look back on the 2010 European Championships with pleasure.

So download the GPS's, pack up the gear, jump in Bella's Audi TT and race down to Slovenia for the 6 tasks of the British Championships (round 1) Fantastic weather gave us great racing conditions (if a little predictable) I was always in the top ten front gaggle of R10.2's. Strangely enough all the red R10's where Brits and the French Team were on Blu R10's. It became a bit of a visual spectacle of Reds and Blues doing battle in the skies above Tolmin.

The final day found me and Jamie Messenger getting the jump on the others, but Jamie hit an incredible moonbeem just before the final glides, while my moderate 3 meter climb left me tussling with the Frenchies for the line. My daring dive into a tree lined bowl for the final turnpoint was too much for the French, who held back for more altitude. Our speed bar race for the line saw me hold my nerve and the wing to claim second place on that task. A great result finds me third Brit, tussling for the Championship with Jamie Messenger, Craig Morgan and Mark Hayman.