First stop of the Acro World Tour 2023 | Nest Games - St Hilaire Du Touvet

On Saturday 10th of June the first ever Acro World Tour event over the ground took place in St Hilaire du Touvet, France. This event called Nest Games was the opening stop of the 2023 season. But it was most of all the grand unveiling of the brand new competition format allowing competitions from the Pro tour to take place above the ground after over 20 years of competition above water.

It is safe to say that the event was a great success with the 3 runs flown within a single day despite a challenging forecast. The general level of the competition was one of the highest ever seen in Acro competition and yet everything was done in perfect safety with pilots able to push hard and yet stop high enough to proceed for a safe landing. In the end it was a great showcase of how safe and how good the new « above the ground » format is and will be for the future of acro flying.

Competition wise it was a hard fought battle between Théo de Blic (FRA) and Luke De Weert (NED) with the frenchman coming in first by only 0,025 point out of 39 points which is one of the smallest difference ever registered within the world of acro flying. Théo and Luke were respectively 2nd and 3rd after run 1 behind Axel Coste flying the AirG Carlito who pulled the first ever Full twisted Flat Stall to Infinity. But the battle really started on run 2 with Luke flying a Kooky from Sky Paragliders gaining the first position scoring the highest run of the competition and Théo finishing 2nd of that run being set back by 0,9points from the lead. The 3rd and last run ended up being flown in tough and changing conditions and both pilots ended up with a really low altitude for the final. In the end Théo flying his Nova Paragliders Glitch managed to grab 1st on that run being able to pull one more trick than Luke and getting the win by only 0,025 points. The suspense remains incredibly high for the rest of the season and no doubt about the fact that the battle between both pilots will go back and forth until the very end of the season.