Willi Canell will represent the US in the 2019 Red Bull X-Alps, the 5th US athlete in the history of the race to call Sun Valley, Idaho home of the 10 US athletes who have competed. He’ll be lined up with me in Salzburg June 16th in the greatest game on Earth as a rookie. He’s my neighbor, flying partner and consistently surprises me with the way he thinks about this crazy sport we all find so compelling. I invited Willi onto the Mayhem because he recently shared his private journal with me and I found his thoughts and ideas about paragliding, risk, training, fitness, and the ultimate question- why we all do what we do not only fascinating but informative and thought-provoking

Episode 91 with Rick Heatley recounted a pretty epic story of things gone wrong with a very happy ending. After we ended the show Rick and I kept talking about the takeaways and some of the things he could have had or could have done differently. Subscriber content that we thought you would enjoy. So we hope you enjoy!

Patrick Von Kanel is only 25 years old but in a few days he’ll be one of the athletes to really watch in the Red Bull X-Alps. His mentors include Michael and Chrigel Maurer, he’s a test pilot for Advance, he’s big, he’s strong, he’s of course Swiss (no non-Swiss pilot has ever won the X-Alps), he’s solid in acro and he came in second in his last two hike and fly races- to the Eagle himself, Chrigel Maurer.