Marcus King has been flying pretty much full time since 1991. He spent many years with the early Ozone team and has been on the design team with Cross Country Magazine for ages. All those gear and wing reviews you see in the magazine (and a TON of the photos!) are compliments of Marcus. In this chat Marcus shares his background in paragliding, his work in the industry, the rise of the sports class competitions, his involvement in the Red Bull X-Alps, and his passion for flying in the French Alps. And then we switch to a very unfortunate totally benign day back in September when Marcus hit the ground hard. Marcus shares his experience of the accident, the rescue operation, and the injuries he sustained and of course the 20-20 hindsights that are always a part of the forensics of making mistakes. He emphasizes the importance of wearing proper safety gear such as an EN certified flying helmet; always communicating with folks before you head out so people know where you are; having all your emergency gear even for the “easy” flights; and the need to respect the risks involved in paragliding with every single flight you take. Marcus discusses his rehabilitation and recovery process, highlighting the mental challenges and coping strategies he employed. Marcus also explores the impact of the accident on his family and the decision to fly again. Important lessons for everyone to hear. Enjoy!
Takeaways
Wearing proper safety gear, such as an EN certified flying helmet, is crucial in minimizing the risk of injuries during paragliding accidents.
Rehabilitation and recovery from paragliding injuries require patience, mental strength, and taking one day at a time.
The paragliding community provides valuable support and inspiration for pilots recovering from accidents.
Respecting the risks involved in paragliding and maintaining a cautious mindset is essential for safe flying.
Chapters
00:00Introduction and Background
07:21Flying in the French Alps
15:35Wing Testing and Gear Reviews
20:06The Rise of Sports Class Competitions
25:13The Red Bull X-Alps Experience
32:38The Accident and Rescue
37:37The Accident and Rescue
39:05The Importance of Proper Safety Gear
40:02Injuries and Hospitalization
44:20Rehabilitation and Recovery
45:02Mental Challenges and Coping Strategies
46:24Lessons Learned and Safety Precautions
49:12Guilt and Support from Family
50:59The Decision to Fly Again
52:23Prognosis and Recovery
53:37Previous Accidents and Lessons
54:17Mixed Emotions about Returning to Flying
56:11Finding Hope and Inspiration from Other Pilots
01:01:13The Importance of Respecting the Risks
01:04:49The Desensitization to Accidents in the Paragliding Community
01:06:24The Illusion of Safety in Familiar Environments
01:09:07The Flow State and Risk Management
01:12:18The Importance of Tracking Devices
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Gavin McClurg (00:22.744)
Okay. Marcus, welcome to the mayhem. Most of the time I see you in the Alps, for the Red Bull X-Alps, so this is a nice way to see one another.
Marcus (00:29.602)
Thank you.
Gavin McClurg (00:37.26)
We're gonna get into what has defined, I'm sure much of your life last few months, for those who don't know. You hit the ground pretty hard, I understand, and you're making a good comeback, so we'll get to that. But I thought where we'd start, for those who don't know about your history, we're sitting in a party together and we're having a chat, and I ask you, who are you and what do you do? How would you answer that?
Marcus (01:06.846)
Okay, well, job wise, I'm the designer for Cross Country magazine, or one of the partners actually in Cross Country magazine along with Ed Ewing and Hugh Miller. So that's my main job. But I've been paragliding for a long time, 30 years plus. Started back in 1991. On the small hills of Wiltshire in England.
Gavin McClurg (01:26.966)
Nice.
Gavin McClurg (01:30.737)
the early, early days.
Marcus (01:36.938)
They're quite different from what the flying is around here where I live now, which is in France So I yeah, I started I was working as a programmer at a manufacturing company And I started flying back then just saw an advert in the in a what's on magazine I thought that looks interesting and I had seen it on a climbing tour in Chamonix we'd pass through Chamonix and I'd seen these gliders coming off the Breville, but didn't know anything about it
and that was probably a year or two before I saw this advert and went, why not? All my mates had gone climbing in Scotland, but I had to be around to be on call for the company I was working for. So it was kind of a bit of a loose end and I saw this advert and thought, yeah, why not give it a go? And I was really lucky, I had four days of beautiful weather, which is quite uncommon in Britain. And it was able to fly by the end of it. And the bug had...
Gavin McClurg (02:29.593)
Oh, yeah, right.
Marcus (02:37.206)
Bitten almost straight away.
Gavin McClurg (02:39.392)
What did that instruction look like back in 91? Here's this thing go.
Marcus (02:44.774)
Yeah, kind of. I think we were on Airwave Blackmagics and other such things. So the glide angle of a brick. And we were just on sloping hills. So you could kind of just run down the hill. You might get a bit off the ground and kind of wobble your way down and then touch down again. I mean, there was no school building or anything like that.
Gavin McClurg (02:55.881)
Ha ha.
Marcus (03:08.254)
The instructor, Dave Sollum, was my instructor, turned up in his Land Rover, we met in a car park, we drove up the hill and that was it. Spent the day on the hill.
Gavin McClurg (03:18.607)
Did you have any hang background or did you start right off with BG?
Marcus (03:23.27)
I started straight away with paragliding. I'd come from, I'd been into climbing a bit. I went to university in North Wales, which was a bit of the home of, which was kind of the home of climbing at the time. I actually met Bob Jury there while I was a student. So it was the first time we met and we then met later through paragliding and did stuff together.
Gavin McClurg (03:25.357)
Oh, interesting.
Gavin McClurg (03:37.932)
Mmm.
Gavin McClurg (03:48.285)
I just watched that.
I think it's called, Hugh put me onto it, Big Blue Sky. And I've been preparing for these talks with some of the legendary hang pilots, Roy Haggard and Tom Pagini and John Heine and those guys. And I'll be going out to California here soon to talk to them. But that documentary of kind of the beginning of hang gliding is amazing. And that the footage they have of exactly what you're talking about in the, but this was the early 70s, when they're just hocking it with these crazy contraptions.
Marcus (04:09.357)
Yeah.
Gavin McClurg (04:19.49)
and they'll fly 10 seconds or 15 seconds and just monumentally stoked and can't wait for the next one. And it's pretty remarkable.
Marcus (04:32.938)
Yeah, I mean, when I started paragliding, I passed my license in Britain, went to the local club, which was the Haven Handgliding Club, as it was then, I guess. And I turned up, there was three paraglider pilots in the meeting and a room full of hand glider pilots. So, hang gliding was the thing that everybody did at that time.
Gavin McClurg (04:45.205)
Yeah.
Gavin McClurg (04:58.804)
Right, right, sure. Fast forward a little bit, then where did it go?
Marcus (05:06.658)
So I kind of, I met through doing the British Nationals and other comps, I met Mike Kavanagh. And when they set up Ozone, I spoke to him about a job there. And in the early 2000s, I ended up moving out to France with him, well, not with him, to Ozone, to come and work for Ozone as their marketing person, doing the website, doing...
Gavin McClurg (05:17.577)
Oh, so.
Gavin McClurg (05:30.39)
Yeah.
Gavin McClurg (05:34.875)
Okay.
Marcus (05:36.126)
adverts doing manuals but back then there was only five of us, five or six of us, we were in a very small office and all the gliders came to that office to be then distributed. So it wasn't just doing my work, it was packing boxes, it was going out on the hill with David and Robbie who were the test pilots at the time, helping test the bigger sizes a bit. So it was kind of you did a bit of everything, it was really nice.
sort of family scene. I had a real family feel about the company and we all worked together and we all played together. So that's what brought me to France. And then I'd done, when I was back before that in Britain, when I was part of the club scene, I'd done the newsletter for the club. And so.
Gavin McClurg (06:17.068)
Okay.
Marcus (06:33.674)
When I was in France and I got to meet Bob Durie, who then became the editor of Cross Country, he then asked me to join him to help with Cross Country. So I ended up moving from my own zone to become Cross Country and doing the design and layout of the magazine. Which then of course, yeah. So Bob was, we both lived in the same village. We were both in a village just behind Gordon, which is a fairly well-known flying site. It's where...
Gavin McClurg (06:50.688)
But you were able to stay in France to do that. Yeah.
Marcus (07:03.562)
Ozone test team test all the time and BGD are in the same area and I think SUP Air also here. It's all part of the SUP Air test team here. So it's a well known flying area.
Gavin McClurg (07:14.401)
Okay. I didn't know stuff there was down there now. Yeah. I mean, you fly pretty much every day, don't you?
Marcus (07:21.482)
You can do, yeah. There's been a bit more challenging in recent years with climate change, changing the winds a bit. Definitely when we first moved here, you'd expect 300 days a year, according to Bruce.
Gavin McClurg (07:22.865)
Yeah.
Gavin McClurg (07:30.002)
Mm. Yeah, of course.
Gavin McClurg (07:34.696)
Amazing. Yeah. And you, were you back then, were you also testing gliders or were you more marketing? Cause I know now you do a lot of testing and gliders for the mag.
Marcus (07:47.354)
I was more for ozone. I was more marketing. I did get asked to test not for not for a safety point of view so I didn't do the en test style flying but I did testing of the bigger sizes to see how they felt see if they were in line with what the guys were saying for the smaller sizes so we got involved a bit in that but not proper test flying not like not the sort of
Gavin McClurg (07:49.938)
Okay.
Gavin McClurg (08:12.)
Thank you.
Yeah.
Marcus (08:16.138)
honor and do know, which is the safety tests and all that.
Gavin McClurg (08:19.724)
Sure, sure. And what was your own kind of path or journey? I was thinking Jim Mounson when I say journey, he said it's one of his least favorite words. But what was your, I understand you flew World Cups for a while, where has your passion kind of led you with the flying aspect thing? It sounds like mostly it's been marketing in terms of the work, but yeah, I know you're a very keen pilot. You spend a lot of time in the air.
Marcus (08:31.054)
Thanks for watching!
Marcus (08:49.01)
Yeah, so I started flying. When I first flew, there weren't so many of us flying. So, I mean, I remember the first year flying, I flew about 11 kilometers, I think, on one flight. And it was in the top 10 of the British league. I was in the top 10 of the British league. So it was very easy to get, find yourself quite highly placed. So I ended up doing the nationals, the British nationals. And then...
Gavin McClurg (09:06.656)
Hahahaha
Marcus (09:18.462)
from that doing the World Cup, not overly successfully. So I found myself in this bigger pool of very good pilots from Europe and realized I didn't have the skill level that I necessarily needed, but it was fun. It was a learning process. And yeah, so I kept doing national level competitions, I guess. I never had amazing success. I'm not a brilliant pilot at everything.
Gavin McClurg (09:22.761)
Hmm.
Marcus (09:46.71)
But I enjoyed it and it taught me a huge amount. So it was a great learning process for cross country flying. And I think that's probably more my passion. I like flying through the mountains. So here we're lucky we've got some great routes from the back door. Yeah, you can walk out the back door and take off and go north. And that takes you to some very nice mountains.
Gavin McClurg (09:53.831)
Yeah.
Gavin McClurg (10:09.676)
Yeah, the maritimes are one of my favorite places on earth. It's just uh you know I only got to really hang out there very much for the either the training of the races or the or the races but it's uh
always say I should spend more time down there. They're just magnificent. You know, they're incredible for biby. I did one of my favorite trips in all those years of training. I think it was for the first one in 2015. I started in Chamonix at the Bravant and hiked up the Bravant and had my biby kit and just flew down the maritimes and got to, I don't know, 30, 40k of the med.
Marcus (10:28.375)
Yeah.
Gavin McClurg (10:50.148)
incredible. You're in, you're right on the border of France and Italy and yet you feel like you kind of have it all yourself. It's a pretty amazing area.
Marcus (10:59.148)
Yeah.
I mean, there's a lot of terrain. Yeah, and you go a bit further.
Gavin McClurg (11:04.296)
A lot of terrain, a lot of big terrain. I think people that haven't been in there, you don't realize it, it's big stuff.
Marcus (11:10.922)
Yeah, because it's the main chain coming to the sea. And yeah, Tim Pantreif has made some great videos that highlight some of the possibilities and flying through the Akron and stuff. And I remember when I first did a lot of cross-country flying with Bob Durie, we did some flights through the Akron early on, probably early 2000s. And I think we were some of the first people to fly through them and it was just.
Gavin McClurg (11:14.13)
Yeah.
Gavin McClurg (11:19.323)
Yeah, he has.
Gavin McClurg (11:24.906)
Yes.
Marcus (11:39.414)
I remember Bob saying it's some of the most intense terrain that he's flown through and he's flown in the Himalayas and other places so.
Gavin McClurg (11:48.012)
Yeah, it really is. Help me with the fort above Lake Everton.
a real famous flying site by the castle up there. The castle was burned down if you're, Saint-Mont-Saint. Yeah, well, one of my first, I used to do these trips, I did a couple trips with Toby Cologne with Passion Paragliding, where he would start in Nantes and end in Nice, or start in Nice and end in Nantes. So it was kind of a van version of the Maritimes part of the XL. But you would just create a task given the day and you'd go as far as you could and then.
Marcus (12:03.426)
Oh yes, I've been song. Yeah.
Gavin McClurg (12:25.336)
we'd stay there and then start from there the next day. It was really neat. It was a cool way to learn that part of the world. And we one day, we started it at Saint Vincent and flew down to
Marcus (12:38.538)
Yeah, 50, I think it's 50k down to San Andres. It's kind of a big, it's the north of Saint Vincent, on the top of the ridge is the Dormeuse, and there's a big fort on the very top of the ridge, and that's one of the turn points that we normally use if we're doing triangles from here. So it's the north of...
Gavin McClurg (12:51.868)
Yep.
Gavin McClurg (12:58.944)
Okay, yeah, I just remember that being so awesome. I mean, some of that terrain between there is just gray, rock, and spiky, and you know, it's very much kind of like my backyard, you know, it's just, whoa, where am I? You know, this doesn't seem like France. That's really, really magnificent. And it's really stunning.
Marcus (13:09.162)
Yeah.
Marcus (13:15.614)
Yeah, the Tetris drop is pretty stunning. Big rock faces.
Gavin McClurg (13:22.632)
And the Brits have, you often have your, one of your national events there in San Andres, right? I remember Russ Ogden saying that his two favorite places to fly a comp were Chelan here in Washington and San Andres. And San Andres is a pretty remarkable place to fly terminals.
Marcus (13:42.974)
Yes, there's lots of opportunity now. And I think the great thing about St. André is in the past it was, loads of people just flew the Dormues Ridge up to Saint-Vincent back. But now people are flying out into the flatlands and big triangles out that way, out to Cisteron and then back across to the top of the Dormues. So, I mean, Luc and Honorin and others have done some big flights from Col de Blen going out towards Cisteron and out almost to...
Gavin McClurg (13:58.119)
Mmm.
Marcus (14:12.534)
big Rhone Valley and then back across and then down to create 300k triangles. It's very impressive what they're doing.
Gavin McClurg (14:13.864)
Yeah.
Gavin McClurg (14:19.412)
Yeah, that one what Baptiste did last year that was at 350 or something. It's just
Marcus (14:24.05)
Yeah. But even for the normal pilot, there's the opportunity to do 200k triangles around here from Colderblend. So because you just shorten some of those legs and you're still using the main fur of hairs but you can to come back on and stuff.
Gavin McClurg (14:30.067)
Yeah.
Gavin McClurg (14:33.924)
Yeah, sure. Yeah.
Gavin McClurg (14:41.568)
Right. Magnificent place to fly. We haven't cracked that code over here yet. We just, we don't, the terrain doesn't quite line up for us in that way. We, we climb off of fast, we get off a high, but we just have not figured out. It's, it's there. We know it's there, but we just haven't figured out how to do it. You know, you have those early starts where you guys can fly 50, 60k without making a turn even at 830, you know, you just.
Stick your wingtip on the terrain, keep going. It's pretty special. Okay, switching to the mag. And you are the guy who does a lot of wing reports and wing testing. I would imagine that's tricky from a perspective of the magazine. You want to be honest, but you also want to be... You don't want to potentially ruin a relationship with a...
with a manufacturer, how does that work in the back end? I think a lot of people are curious about that. You know, you wanna put out a report that is accurate, but you know, gear reviews can often be swayed. How does that work?
Marcus (15:50.678)
Yeah, I think we have to be very careful about what we say about wings. As in, I don't think you can be overly negative because obviously manufacturers will not take kindly to that. It's not just because, yeah, they're paying, they are paying us money for us, but we try to be totally truthful about our reviews. What I always think is I'm trying to explain to people the character of the wing.
Gavin McClurg (16:02.54)
Mm.
Marcus (16:20.894)
I don't think there's really bad wings these days. And also, performance between different wings, I can't tell, in a review it's really hard to tell. I think over time, there may be a glider is shown to perform a little bit better, but it takes lots of people flying it in competitions. But for the lower class wings, you don't get that information because it's all subjective and...
Gavin McClurg (16:23.828)
That's it. Yeah, exactly.
Gavin McClurg (16:34.354)
Yeah.
Marcus (16:50.226)
Yeah, unless you're flying exactly the same harness and clothes even, you can't compare performance. If you talk to the guys at Ozone, they spend a lot of time trying to compare two wings together on glide. And it's really hard because the pilot, the pilots and the harness, even the clothing, even if you've got a beard can affect the glide.
Gavin McClurg (17:06.276)
Yeah, yeah, it was interesting. I just...
Gavin McClurg (17:14.891)
Yeah, it's crazy. Just down at the Monarcha in Valle, and you know that there were quite a few pilots flying the GR5, the gen version of the submarine. And it's so interesting because none of us really know how good it goes. You know, I was flying the Drifter too, and I think the only one on that.
harness and you know we all kind of went we have it we won't know for a year really you got to put a lot of people on this thing and flying around and see you know is it doesn't have an advantage on the sub is it a disadvantage can we even tell it's you can do all the wind tunnel testing and everything else and get the numbers but like you said it's pretty hard in that it's gotta be from where you're sitting it's gonna be nearly impossible
Marcus (17:58.538)
Yeah, and it's also how usable that performance is, isn't it? For a glider, definitely. Obviously the harness is slightly different, but. And I think, yeah, again, time gives you that information if it's used a lot in competitions. So I guess with the sports class competitions, with the sports class, sorry. So I guess now with the sports class competitions, we're gonna get that information for that level of glider as well.
Gavin McClurg (18:04.444)
Right. Yeah.
Gavin McClurg (18:15.111)
All right.
Gavin McClurg (18:27.98)
Sure. Yeah.
Marcus (18:28.758)
Whereas before it was only really, we were only getting that for the top end gliders. Now we're seeing the true performance of gliders.
Gavin McClurg (18:35.26)
Mm. The sports class thing, I've been meaning to do it, a show specifically on it. It's really exciting, isn't it? I mean, one of the things that I love about sports like baseball and basketball and football is there's not really gear. Doesn't matter, you know? I mean, unless the shoes, okay, I mean, maybe a pair of Air Jordans is a little bit better, but it's...
It's really down to the athlete. And this has been one of the, it's hard when you get into sports like skiing and paragliding where the equipment is a really big deal. You know, Michaela Schifrin.
She ships a container of skis everywhere she goes, and she's got a tuner just for her. He only does her skis. And so it's a marketable advantage when you're relying on equipment, and our sport really relies on equipment. And so I've often thought, wouldn't it be great if we were all flying the exact same thing? And then we can really see who is the best pilot.
still went. But probably, exactly. But the sports class is really cool because it allows competition at not such a fierce end of the spectrum where you're not totally reliant on gear. It's exciting. I'm really glad that this is happening.
Marcus (19:47.211)
Probably.
Marcus (20:04.874)
Yeah, I think it's a very exciting new way for the competitions. And I did a couple of the comps this year, last year, sorry. And it was really nice to be there. It really made me enthusiastic for competition flying again because I didn't have to be on the whizzy machine. I could be on a relatively safe machine. I feel comfortable on it.
Gavin McClurg (20:26.096)
Yes, yeah. And they go good. We were just down there, and there were quite a few people on the Arctic and the photon and the new ENC two liners. And they're.
Marcus (20:30.027)
Yeah.
Gavin McClurg (20:43.748)
you never see them take a hit. They're incredibly robust in the air, but they have that two-liner feel that we all love, who fly two-liners, and the two-liner control, which is a big difference. Yeah, which is a big difference. You can feel it, and you can push them, which is pretty neat to see.
Marcus (20:54.69)
and that two line of control as well. So you're taking less hits because of that.
Marcus (21:04.042)
Yeah, I mean, I've really, I flew the photon last year mainly and really enjoyed flying that like in Italy at Jambona and we can go on these long glides and you can use the rear risers all the time to control the wing and you feel safe because you've got that control. You have that level of extra level of control that you had before on seas, so.
Gavin McClurg (21:11.431)
Mm.
Gavin McClurg (21:22.556)
Yeah.
Gavin McClurg (21:27.616)
Hmm. Yeah, I mean, I remember back in the day, and this has been a long time, but when I flew the Arctic II, ENC back in the day, it was just a, at some point you're gonna take a huge hit. At some point you're gonna take a massive frontal, and you had nothing to tell you that it was going to happen. And these days now, you don't see it happening. It's an exciting development in the sport.
Marcus (21:51.884)
Yeah.
I'm sure the technology is better and yeah, the feel is better. So you're reacting to it a lot more.
Gavin McClurg (22:01.)
Yeah, you can feel it. You can feel what's happening with the air, which is great. I mean, that's why two-liners are so exciting.
Marcus (22:08.446)
I think the other thing about the sports class comps is they feel very supportive. Everybody is in there to help each other get the best out of it. Even the people that are pushing to win, they're willing to pass information around all the time. And I just found it a really supportive environment to fly in. Yeah. And it was good to see people blossoming in that environment.
Gavin McClurg (22:13.589)
Mmm.
Gavin McClurg (22:17.161)
Yeah.
Gavin McClurg (22:23.524)
Yeah, that special mentoring belt built in, in a sense. Yeah, that's fantastic.
Gavin McClurg (22:36.08)
Yeah. One of the things I've been really noticing in our scene and the US comp scene lately is that people are coming up through the ranks and becoming very accomplished comp pilots way faster than and it used to be that 10 years before you'd fly an E&D or a CCC wing or a comp wing back in the day
It would just, it would take longer to get there. It would take longer to.
learn how to perform with the best in the world. And, you know, with the wings these days, and like you said, with the mentoring, Nate made a comment, Nate scales my neighbor who's been in the game as long as you have. And he said, you know, he was down in Viate and he was blown away by the scene now because it used to be competitive. You know, they used to throw beer bottles out of the window at each other's heads. And, you know, if you were on a firebird,
or there was that team versus the other team. And it was really competitive. And it's obviously still competitive at the World Cup end and people want to win, but there's a lot of mentoring going on. There's a lot of, you know, people are really helping each other out. And it's good to see. It's a pretty neat development.
Marcus (24:01.45)
Yeah, as you said, pilots are accelerating through the process very quickly now. But becoming good pilots as well, it's not like a shortcut.
Gavin McClurg (24:06.776)
very quickly. It's almost scary. It's just wow, but it's amazing. Exactly. Yeah.
I'm sure a lot of that's just the trust in the glider as well. You know, you just have this machine that's very different than what you guys were dealing with, where you're just the whole object just to keep the thing open. You know, now we don't have to worry about that nearly as much. We can press. Yeah.
Marcus (24:30.89)
Not really, no. That's what, like I said, with the reviews, there aren't really bad gliders anymore. It's just gliders have different flavors. They have different feel. And for me, the review is to try and express that so people can choose the wings that suit their style of flying. People have a flavor. And...
Gavin McClurg (24:40.956)
Mm.
Gavin McClurg (24:49.44)
Mm.
Yeah. Before we get to your accident, and I want to spend most of the time on the show on that, because you've had a pretty interesting few months, of course. And thankfully, I think we're heading towards a happy ending, which is great. But.
Before we get to that, you know, I've put out a number of shows on the X Ops. These kind of, you know, a walk and fly down memory lane. And I've done those all with athletes, but you and Ed and Hugh over the years have been very involved with the Red Bull X Ops and I thought it'd be really fun to pause here for a second and get your take on.
Marcus (25:21.477)
Hehehe
Gavin McClurg (25:35.324)
It could just be a singular story, you know, some crazy memory that you have from it. But, you know, we're still a ways out from 25. But it's a subject that everybody knows who listens to the show knows I love so much. But it'd be interesting to get your take from the other side, because it was it was quite different for me, obviously, this time being on your side. That's fanciing from the journalism side of the fence. And it was pretty wild watching those guys and girls.
Marcus (25:49.57)
Ha ha ha.
Marcus (25:58.987)
Yeah.
Marcus (26:02.558)
It's always amazing to watch them. And it's just every year, every time, they get faster and faster and you think, oh, they might not get around this year, but they do. And it's, yeah, and it's been interesting how it's changed. I mean, I remember, it must've been, yeah, it was the first time and Dav de Gaulle was in it. And we were.
Gavin McClurg (26:06.069)
It's a bit insane.
Gavin McClurg (26:14.088)
Yeah, right.
Marcus (26:28.682)
We were in the Ozone office, we were trying to support him and Nicky, his then partner, who was supporting him. And we were just like, none of the technology was really there. We didn't have all the weather forecasting, they do now. And it was just a case of ringing up, the contacts of the company, who's the distributor in that area, ring them up, get the information. But I remember Nicky going,
I don't know where Dave is. He went over this hill and I haven't got a clue where he's gone now. Because, you know, there's hardly any tracking. It was really hard. And just the technology wasn't there. But now you can follow them. You can watch them firmly in 3D on your screen. And it's, yeah, that sort of it's really changed. And we're getting a lot more access to what happens as watchers, as viewers, because every team has their own media people now.
Gavin McClurg (27:00.374)
Right.
Gavin McClurg (27:09.859)
Yeah.
Gavin McClurg (27:15.507)
Mm.
Gavin McClurg (27:24.018)
Yeah.
Marcus (27:24.146)
So they're busy recording everything, putting it on their own social. And you know, it's so much more open. And people say, I do hear a lot of people going, oh, it's more and more dangerous. It's getting more and more dangerous. But I think actually what's happening now is you're seeing more of it. If you, I mean, I remember hearing Dab's stories at the time and it was just as wild.
Gavin McClurg (27:28.445)
Right.
Gavin McClurg (27:41.32)
Mmm.
Gavin McClurg (27:46.869)
Yeah.
Marcus (27:47.374)
flying through storms, avoiding storms, getting tumbled. I mean, he told me about getting tumbled coming down through a valley, and his reserve popped out, he managed to grab it, put it in his pocket, and flew on.
Gavin McClurg (28:00.508)
Of course, as you do.
Marcus (28:02.838)
But nobody really knew about it at the time. But now that would be all over social media. So I think when people are going, I think the race is getting sketchier and sketchier. It's not, it's the same race. It's just, we can see it a lot more now. And it's...
Marcus (28:19.606)
We get to see every moment. Especially now you were there flying alongside it and that gives another element to it.
Gavin McClurg (28:28.54)
Mm, yeah, and I've you know, I've really helped my kit since then, you know, this time I just showed up and they went here use this and it wasn't it wasn't that it was bad it just wasn't quite right and it was it made it really hard to take off and You know, I had my own
little X-ops adventures because of the filming equipment. So I've now got really good gear. And we had this live platform that Red Bull gave Zoom, I think 48 hours before the prologue. So I mean, we really didn't figure it out until the race was over. We kind of had it figured out when I was dialing down over Ellie in a spiral dive going to the raft. And that was...
Marcus (29:08.884)
Yeah.
Gavin McClurg (29:09.66)
finally it works, you know, literally at the end of the race. So I think that's going to be really exciting. We might be able to tap into Starlink next time. And I think that'll be. Possibilities. Yes, exactly. You know, there's just so many stories embedded in that race that never even come out. You know, there's things that happen to every team, every race that are, you know, that are that are a book in themselves.
Marcus (29:18.322)
I think yeah the possibilities are getting bigger and bigger aren't they?
Marcus (29:39.058)
I'm sure, yeah. Everybody's got their own little tales.
Gavin McClurg (29:42.86)
When you think of the X-Ops, what's the craziest thing you saw either personally or story you heard all the years? That's a tough one. I'm putting you on the spot here. But are there any that just... I remember one of my fondest and head check memories I have is after the 2015 race, we made it to Monaco that year. It was the only time I made it.
Marcus (29:53.366)
Hahaha.
Gavin McClurg (30:09.792)
The van booked for the wrong return. I couldn't even go to the party. Bruce and I drove all night after we got to Monaco and we were just hammered and just so tired. And we got to the Zoom office in Fuchel and Ed was there and you know, big Ed and he gave me this look and this, then he gave me this hug that was just.
I'm glad you're alive. You know, 2015 was a really windy year and there were a lot of accidents that year and a lot of withdrawals, but you know, he just kind of knew, he knew what I'd gone through and he gave me this look that was just, oh, I'll cherish it forever. But it was a real look of concern. I often read that in you guys, because when you're embedded and you're hearing the stories and you're reporting on it and you're seeing the weather, it is a little spooky.
Marcus (31:00.638)
Yeah, and we get to know all the athletes. This is the brilliant thing about our sport is you can talk to anybody in the sport and everybody's approachable. And they're like your friends within about five minutes because we all share this thing in common. And so when we wander around.
Gavin McClurg (31:05.254)
Yeah.
Marcus (31:25.098)
at the start and we talk to people, we become friends with them. We have a vested interest in them. And we worry about them. When we watch the race going ahead from our offices, we're worried about these people because they're our friends. And we feel it's, yeah. And I think that's something really special about our sport is that we get to mix with the best in the sport. It's like...
Gavin McClurg (31:40.605)
Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
Marcus (31:54.478)
you know, meeting people that are in the NBA or football, Premier League footballers, and you just walk and talk with them.
Gavin McClurg (31:57.5)
Yeah, right.
Gavin McClurg (32:02.532)
Right. Yeah, you want to talk to Kregel? Go talk to him. He's happy to talk to you. Yeah.
Marcus (32:04.81)
Yeah, I mean, everybody in the X Alps has always got time. I know they have to come and talk to us because we're the magazine, but I generally feel that they all have time.
Gavin McClurg (32:10.933)
Hmm.
Gavin McClurg (32:18.684)
Yeah, yeah, that is special. That's really neat.
Marcus (32:20.862)
and it's something special about our sport as well. You walk onto Gordon, Russ is there, he'll talk to you.
Gavin McClurg (32:27.288)
Yeah, yeah, that is really special. All right, bud, so what happened on that fateful day?
Marcus (32:38.019)
So I think it was, it's a story of complacency I think. It's kind of the end, it was the end of season, yeah season with lots of flying, it was good flying and enjoying myself. And it was just another morning doing a hike and fly. I've been doing lots of hike and fly on our local hill. And nothing.
Gavin McClurg (32:42.028)
Mm.
Marcus (33:02.886)
special just a normal day walked up lovely conditions early in the morning so nothing really happening took off flew around a bit using some gentle lift flew along the hill a bit along the ridge and then came back decided to try and get up in the cliffs and uh
Marcus (33:28.242)
I think it's taken me a while to work out probably what happened. And it is a bit of conjecture because I don't actually have a full recollection of what happened. It all got blanked out at the time and little snippets. I can remember snippets, but that's it. And I remember working a little bit of lift in this corner, in the cliffs. And I followed it back over the sort of edge of the cliffs.
Gavin McClurg (33:45.096)
Interesting.
Marcus (33:56.787)
onto the sloping slope behind.
And I turned to try and keep in this little bubble of lift. And I think I just spanned the wing at that point. Mainly, and looking back at it, I think I'd been flying a normal big ENC two-liner earlier in the week, which has quite long brake travel. Was used to that. Had been flying wings with fairly long brake travel a lot of the time. Hadn't flown the little mountain wing quite so much.
Gavin McClurg (34:25.516)
Mm.
Marcus (34:30.222)
and it's brakes are set very short. So I think I just went to turn tightly and just overdid it. Not in itself a problem. I recognize the problem, we've spun gliders lots in testing and stuff. And it's something I always do with gliders when I first get them is search for the spin and just take it to a spin point and do 180 degree spin and fly out. And I think the glider.
started to spin so I released and I remember the glider going out in front so I went to catch it. The next thing I'm on the ground so I think I just pendulum into the hill because I hadn't left enough space.
Gavin McClurg (35:09.356)
Thanks for watching!
Gavin McClurg (35:13.696)
You didn't have enough margin there, okay.
Marcus (35:17.126)
So I sort of, you know, have that snippet of it being in front and then I'm on the ground.
Gavin McClurg (35:23.796)
and then you're on the ground.
Marcus (35:29.438)
And then I had to think about rescue. So complacency again, I hadn't really said what I was doing.
Marcus (35:39.33)
my wife was not there. Nobody really knew I was actually flying.
Gavin McClurg (35:44.692)
Hmm. Yeah, you just got out for a little quick hike and flight. Yeah.
Marcus (35:47.598)
Because you think, oh, it's fine. I'm just going for a hike and fly. I'll be landing at the field, it's fine. But luckily, one thing I've always been careful about is keeping my phone in a place where I could always reach it. And it's just something being drilled into me. So luckily I was able to get my phone and call for help. And I was very lucky that the local school were on site. So...
local instructor Cedric Bousin was teaching students. He got told there was something happening. He then got involved in organizing the rescue. So actually the rescue went really smoothly. I was very lucky. So I could have been, if I hadn't had a phone and I could have been stuck on that hillside because nobody would have known I was there. But luckily I was able to phone and this...
Gavin McClurg (36:33.268)
Hmm, Ellie?
Gavin McClurg (36:40.808)
Yeah, right.
Marcus (36:47.206)
My instructor got the rescue working very smoothly. He sent up his TI, ran up the hill to me, along with one of the students who happened to be a nurse in the fire brigade. So they were running up the hill. One of his other students had a drone, so he sent the drone up to find my exact position and guide these two guys into me. And at the same time, the helicopter was being called and that was on its way.
Gavin McClurg (36:58.813)
Andy.
Marcus (37:14.822)
And luckily, another good thing here in France is we do have these rescue helicopters and here it's very close, it's at Nice. So it's not very far away, it's 10 minutes flight time away. And I was very lucky that it was available. So it came straight to me and it was with me in 20 minutes, I think.
Gavin McClurg (37:27.061)
Nice.
Yep.
Gavin McClurg (37:35.552)
Did they have to lift you out or could he land near you? OK.
Marcus (37:37.154)
They did have to lift me out. I don't remember the lift because I remember them arriving, they dropped the two paramedics and they came and checked me over. I said, I think I've broken my pelvis and I had some other small wounds, but they then, yeah, obviously checked me over, decided I had what my injuries were and they said, right, we're gonna have to lift you out. And at that point,
They gave me gas and air and I passed out. Because they couldn't get a stretcher in so I was just in a harness anyway. So it would have been fairly excruciating I would have thought with a broken pelvis to be just harnessed out. But I had an airbag on the bottom of it. I had a reserve as well. And another good thing that I had was a proper EN certified flying helmet.
Gavin McClurg (38:11.852)
Thanks.
Gavin McClurg (38:16.361)
Yeah, right.
Did you just have a little string bikini harness or a proper, did you have some protection?
Gavin McClurg (38:27.408)
Okay.
Marcus (38:36.27)
because I did hit my head. I took a chunk out of the helmet. And it was, that was something, we had been flying in climbing helmets, like probably earlier in the same year, me and my wife. And one of the readers had complained because they were on some videos going, "'Oh, you should really be flying Ian' and Ian certified helmets. And we kind of went, "'Yeah, you're right.'" And at that point I went, "'Actually, Ian, we're not even saving any weight.'"
Gavin McClurg (38:36.743)
Mmm. Take a pretty good hit to your head.
Gavin McClurg (38:41.136)
Wow, geez.
Gavin McClurg (38:58.368)
Mm.
Gavin McClurg (39:05.788)
Yeah, right. You know. Yeah.
Marcus (39:05.898)
when I looked at the specs, compared the specs, and Ed was going, I think, you know, as a magazine we should be seen to be doing the proper thing. And I'm so glad he said that because, you know, I took a whack to a rock somewhere along the way and my helmet took the brunt of it.
Gavin McClurg (39:14.56)
Yeah.
Gavin McClurg (39:24.916)
I'm glad you brought that up. So we actually made that a, that's been a mandatory thing in the X-ops, which for a long time I didn't really understand. And the whole, I mean, climbing helmets gotta be, or ski helmet is good, but they're not. They're not made for the same thing. And by a long stretch. And so the, and like you said, the separate helmet, I think Ozone's got one now too, that are, they're just as light. You might as well. Yeah.
Marcus (39:49.534)
Yeah, that's what I was using was the Supair Pilot.
Gavin McClurg (39:53.48)
The pilot, yeah, which is great. I mean, that's what I've been using for years. So broken pelvis, what else?
Marcus (40:02.806)
A broken vertebrae up in the thorax, which was, I believe, from the sort of hitting over, bending over under the impact. So your body gets thrown forward and that movement is enough to break a vertebrae. And I think it was a couple of cracked ribs and...
Gavin McClurg (40:17.299)
Okay.
Marcus (40:31.014)
Usual stuff. And so, yeah, I was taken to hospital and was left in a coma for a day. Kept in a coma for a day. And then, so once I passed out with the, so once I'd had the gas and air, I passed out and I didn't come around for a whole day. So they kept me under for the next day, next 24 hours. Yeah, because they wanted to stabilize me.
Gavin McClurg (40:37.332)
Oh, oh, so you were in it, you were, so they induced you in a coma?
Gavin McClurg (40:49.48)
Oh, they did that on purpose?
Gavin McClurg (40:57.472)
Ah, okay. Oh, wow. Okay, so there was risk then of spinal cord injury.
Marcus (41:04.09)
Yeah, they weren't sure at that point. I mean, I remember it's obviously one of the first things you check when you're lying on the hill. They're going, oh yeah, I can move my feet, that's all right. But as they said to my wife, that's no guarantee because when they move you, they're keeping you alive. That's all they care about, really. Yeah, that's the first thing is they're keeping you alive. So if they have, obviously they will try their best to keep you.
Gavin McClurg (41:06.131)
Yeah.
Gavin McClurg (41:11.037)
Sure.
Gavin McClurg (41:24.205)
Sure. Right.
Yeah.
Marcus (41:32.982)
your spine straight and stuff, but they can't guarantee it. And they, and with obviously with the pelvic injury, there was lots of grinding going on down there as well. So yeah, I was kept in the Cobra and then they operated, they did the first operation on the pelvis just to stabilize it with two pins. And then they brought me out of the Cobra and I woke up in ICU on the ventilator and with the mouth.
Gavin McClurg (41:52.083)
Okay.
Marcus (42:02.918)
you know feed tubes and stuff which is kind of yeah scary. I think more scary for people watching like my I've got two teenage sons who obviously came to see me and I the look on their face I won't forget for a long time having to see their father with that with the tubes and stuff yeah.
Gavin McClurg (42:03.612)
Welcome back to the world.
Gavin McClurg (42:09.321)
Yeah, that's very scary.
Gavin McClurg (42:21.636)
Yeah, they're thinking, is dad gonna be in a wheelchair? Is he gonna be, oh man, scary stuff. And the vertebrae, did that require surgery?
Marcus (42:31.178)
Luckily that didn't, no. I had scans and they decided it didn't need surgery.
Gavin McClurg (42:33.177)
Okay.
Gavin McClurg (42:36.584)
So was that a, forgive my lack of body knowledge here, but is that the, was it a disc or was it the vertebra?
Marcus (42:46.738)
It was a compression of the vertebrae.
Gavin McClurg (42:48.792)
Okay, okay. So you're a little bit shorter.
Marcus (42:50.698)
According to the scan says it's a 50% squashing of that vertebrae, but without any bulging. So that's a good thing. There was no bulging into the central canal.
Gavin McClurg (43:03.785)
Okay. What do they do for that? Do they go in and do MRIs and just make sure there's no little pieces that can cut stuff? And okay.
Marcus (43:11.813)
Yeah, I had, yeah, so I had MRI scans to check that was all right. And that's when they decided they didn't need to do surgery on that. But.
Gavin McClurg (43:18.796)
Okay. How long were you in hospital?
Marcus (43:22.634)
Well, I was in, so I was taken to Nice Hospital, which is the local emergency area, hospital for our area. And that's where I had my, so I was there in ICU. They then did the first operation, and a couple of days later I had my, the main operation, which was to put in two big screws and a plate across the front of the pelvis with lots of little screws. So it looked like a Meccano set now.
Gavin McClurg (43:48.434)
Mm.
Marcus (43:51.478)
But, and they, so I was there for probably 10 days. And then here we are, luckily we've got these rehabilitation centers. So I got moved to one that's in grass, which is just basically you can see Gordon flying sight from it. And there they can do physio. You know, they have lots of physios and it's, you've got all the stuff you need to make your recovery.
to get you back on your feet. For me, the biggest thing was I had to wait for the bones to heal before they could do too much. So I had two months of not being able to go above 45 degrees inclination. So basically flat on my back, partly because of the vertebrae and partly because of the pelvis. So that was the hard part mentally, just the waiting. And also...
Gavin McClurg (44:31.296)
Oof.
Gavin McClurg (44:37.38)
Oh god that's a long time to lay around.
Gavin McClurg (44:46.497)
What did you experience there? What were some of the, did you latch on to any, I don't know, did you start meditating? Did you just read like crazy? Did you watch Netflix? What were you doing to help get you through that?
Marcus (45:02.258)
I did a lot of reading, did watch quite a bit of Netflix. I mean, I got lots of good advice from some quite, well-known pilots was messaging me lots. And like Tom Doddler, who had quite a big accident, I think said, just take every day, one day at a time. And that's such good advice because...
Gavin McClurg (45:08.053)
Yeah.
Gavin McClurg (45:13.74)
We've been through it.
Gavin McClurg (45:24.391)
Yeah.
Marcus (45:29.118)
it's really easy to go, oh, it's six weeks is my goal. I get six weeks and I'll be all right. And then you get to six weeks and the surgeon goes, actually, you need another two weeks. You just drop. I had that in that they said, you get different information from the surgeons along the way and they say, so it'll be six weeks for repair and then you can start walking. And then you get to six weeks, they go, no, you need a bit more because your bones haven't consolidated enough. And when you've set that goal,
Gavin McClurg (45:53.907)
Hmm
Marcus (45:56.47)
and it's taken away from you. It's such a huge mental drop that, yeah, I don't mind admitting there were tears at those moments. They were quite bleak moments. But, you know, all the advice I was giving, people giving and taking one day at a time, and that's really helped. I just kind of focused on working for each day, and then you go, oh, several weeks have gone now, and there's only a couple more weeks.
Gavin McClurg (45:57.66)
It just shatters it. Yeah.
Marcus (46:24.342)
but not try to think too far ahead and just do. For me, it was, yeah, I was motivated to do what I could with the exercises I could. And the great thing is, because I was in this rehabilitation center with the physios there, even when I could only lie down, they've taken me up on my stretcher, but into the physio room, and I would do exercises with my lower legs.
and with my arms to keep build the strength there, just to keep everything moving, but without putting force on it. So it meant that when I finally got the go ahead to stand up, I could move a lot quicker, I think. And the acceleration, once you could stand up, it was like, in a couple of weeks, I went from not walking to walking with a hoist holding me up.
Gavin McClurg (47:07.573)
Mm.
Gavin McClurg (47:14.892)
and chips started falling.
Marcus (47:20.65)
to then walking with a big walker frame, to then walking with a normal frame, to walking with crutches, to walking without the crutches, all in the space of two weeks. And it just felt, that just felt really incredible.
Gavin McClurg (47:34.848)
Kind of like being 11 months again. It sounds like you just suddenly go from the ground to the sky. Whoa, I'm doing it. And it's probably just as exciting as it was back then.
Marcus (47:37.202)
Yeah. Ha ha ha.
Marcus (47:44.062)
Yeah.
Marcus (47:47.538)
Yeah. But you do these things and you kind of, I remember thinking paragliding and climbing are really good training for some of these recovery things because a lot of it's the fear of the unknown. When you first take weight on your hips again, you're like, is it gonna, what's it gonna be like? Is it gonna hurt? Is it gonna break? Am I gonna fall over? And I think.
Gavin McClurg (48:08.501)
Is it gonna work?
Marcus (48:15.662)
For us as paraglider pilots, and I've come from a climbing background a bit, you do get used to taking those steps into the unknown a bit. And I think mentally we're conditioned a bit to be able to do that. So I think that helps with our recovery. And I definitely was able to draw on some of that.
Gavin McClurg (48:25.98)
Interesting.
Marcus (48:36.354)
be a bit more mentally strong because we had that.
Gavin McClurg (48:41.315)
Was there guilt?
involved with your family, with your wife, with your kids. I know that Ed made a big point of when I was preparing for this to talk to you that you're a full-on family man. You take your family very seriously. You spend a lot of time with them. I recently had a guest on who also had an accident, towing accident. Dad Spencer, a friend of mine out here, he had a towing accident in Minnesota. He talked about that, just this...
You know, you just overwhelm, you feel, you're not contributing to the family, you're not helping out with dinner, you're a patient, you're a baby, you're getting taken care of. It's just, especially I think men are not very good at this. We're not very good at being convalescent.
Marcus (49:27.836)
Hahaha
Marcus (49:32.766)
Yeah, and I think, I think I had, you had to kind of almost mentally turn some of your wanting to take control and you had to turn it off and sit back and let people do stuff for you. Because otherwise you'll get frustrated, you'll spend, it was, you know, some of it, so much of it is in your head and you have to sometimes take a step back and go, no, I have to let these people take over because they know what they're doing.
Gavin McClurg (49:43.325)
Mm.
Gavin McClurg (49:48.446)
Yeah.
Marcus (50:02.582)
They are caring for me and it is hard as you say, especially probably for men that are control freaks. And I think a lot of paraglider pilots are control freaks as well. We have quite strong personalities and egos, even the quieter ones. It's why we do this sport. It's part of why we do this sport, I think. But yeah, for guilt.
Gavin McClurg (50:10.985)
Mm.
Gavin McClurg (50:14.59)
Yeah.
Marcus (50:28.582)
Yeah, you obviously feel bad for the family. I mean, I'm so lucky that I've had a wife that's just, she is a pilot as well, so she understands that side of it. But she's been a solid rock through the whole thing. She's been there all the way and supported me. And we've obviously, we've discussed flying again together. And she understands that flying is such an important part of our lives.
Gavin McClurg (50:39.246)
helpful.
Marcus (50:58.491)
It almost feels weird that I wouldn't not fly again.
Gavin McClurg (50:59.039)
Eh.
Gavin McClurg (51:03.212)
I was gonna say, is there, is there, have there been any of those conversations? Is there, you know, in any of the teary moments, has there been any, I'm not gonna do this again.
Marcus (51:09.802)
Yeah, I think I did. At one point earlier on, I was like, will I fly again? I don't know, I don't know if I'll fly. And I think, like you said, the guilt thing's very much in there. But you have conversations with, like I have conversations with my wife, I've had conversations with the boys as well, because they're old enough, they're teenagers, so we can have those sort of conversations. And that helps you.
realise that it's part of you and it's for me, I'm not sure, yeah, I'm sure not everybody would come to the same decision and that's everybody's, you know, their own person. But for me it's such been such an important part of my life for 30 years. For me it would feel weird if I couldn't come back. I mean I'm not there yet. No. Because I think I've...
Gavin McClurg (52:00.552)
Are you flying now? Okay.
Marcus (52:07.87)
It doesn't feel like I'm ready yet, physically. Yeah, I'm sort of only walking 3K at the moment, maximum. It's still a bit of an effort. There's some bits of nerve damage in the feet.
Gavin McClurg (52:09.972)
Physically. Yeah.
Gavin McClurg (52:17.565)
Okay, yeah.
Gavin McClurg (52:24.204)
When was the accident remind me the date? I remember Ed sent me a text that day, but.
Marcus (52:28.265)
It was September the 15th. So it's been quite a while.
Gavin McClurg (52:33.856)
December has been three, wait, September, October, four months. What is the prognosis? Is it 100 percent? Is it 80? Where do the doctors think you'll get?
Marcus (52:36.226)
Four months.
Marcus (52:45.098)
I've been told it should be a full recovery, although I might get some pain where the pelvis wasn't quite closed properly. So maybe not doing big, huge walks. But yeah, the prognosis is good. And.
Gavin McClurg (52:47.669)
Huh, great.
Gavin McClurg (52:54.38)
Okay.
Gavin McClurg (52:58.763)
Mmm.
Gavin McClurg (53:04.76)
Is this your first pound in paragliding?
Marcus (53:07.562)
No, I did break a vertebrae very early on, actually in the World Cup in Switzerland many years ago, like 25 years ago. But that was relatively minor in the fact that it was a compressed vertebrae. I wore a corset for a few months and that was it. Other time.
Gavin McClurg (53:13.318)
Okay.
Gavin McClurg (53:28.02)
hard landing.
Gavin McClurg (53:34.065)
Okay.
Marcus (53:37.822)
It felt big, but yeah, compared to what's just happened, I realised it's not that big, but it did have, I know it had an effect on my flight afterwards, as all these things do. Like I became a lot more careful about landings after the accident.
Gavin McClurg (53:41.108)
Right.
Gavin McClurg (53:55.852)
Yeah, do you, when you think about flying now, coming back to it, or you know, I'm sure you've kind of envisioned your first flight after this, you know, some lovely peek in behind your house. Is it, you really, is it, is it scary to think about that? Is it, oh, I can't wait. How does that feel?
Marcus (54:17.358)
A bit of both, I think. I think, yeah, I really love flying and I love the freedom of it, so I can't wait to be back in the air. But I know, I'm pretty sure it'll be scary that first time. So I'm a bit nervous about that, and a bit nervous about how I will react, having had such a big hit.
Gavin McClurg (54:18.878)
Uh, yeah.
Gavin McClurg (54:30.825)
Yeah, imagine.
Gavin McClurg (54:36.361)
Mm.
Yeah.
Marcus (54:40.47)
But then I'm also, I've had so many people messaging me about their instances and like telling me about their stories, you know, it gives you hope for your future. And you go, if they've done that, I can do it. And that was one of the reasons I was really happy to talk to you about this because a lot of people, I didn't broadcast it much at the beginning because it was all a bit personal, it was a bit scary and a bit.
Gavin McClurg (54:55.732)
Mm.
Gavin McClurg (55:08.809)
Yep.
Marcus (55:09.226)
I didn't know where it was going. But as I've got better, I've put stuff on Instagram and stuff, like walking out of hospital and things like that. And loads of people have then messaged me going, it's great to see that. It's really encouraging for me. I'm in the same situation. I've had an accident. And it was the same for me. Like Tom was one person that got in touch and Violetta, her story with breaking her pelvis, obviously that was close to me.
and Maude Perrin who broke her pelvis last year, the acro pilot who's now back in the air and seeing these people you know overcome it and move on especially people like Violetta who's not only overcome it but is now in the world championships, is competing at high levels, on the podiums at high level comps and it helps you move on and overcome it yourself. It's not so unknown.
Gavin McClurg (56:11.088)
Yeah, yeah, I mean, and with Violetta, I need to get her on the show about that. But, you know, it wasn't just one, you know, I think she's had six, by my account, pretty major incidents. Not all of them physical, not all of them, you know, ended up in the physical harm, but, or trauma, but still traumatic, you know, it's traumatic going in and, you know, she's...
really stuck with it, it's impressive.
Marcus (56:40.99)
Yeah. And again, it's the beauty of our sport is we have access to all these pilots that will take their time to talk to you as well. I feel very blessed that I've had so many people sending me messages. Every day in hospital I was getting messages from around the world from pilots, some that I knew really well and some pilots I didn't know very well. Just giving me encouragement, giving me their wishes and...
Gavin McClurg (57:10.378)
Yeah.
Marcus (57:10.627)
It really helps. It really, really helps.
Gavin McClurg (57:13.384)
That's interesting to hear. I never know how to approach that. It's always, you know, is it too much? Is it too little? Is it? It's great to hear that those were all received so well. It's nice to hear from everyone.
Marcus (57:27.198)
Yeah, for me it was really helpful. Just made me feel part of the family again. Because to me, Farragulians are just one big family and I feel very privileged to have found this sport that gives us that feeling.
Gavin McClurg (57:32.356)
Ah, fantastic.
Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
Gavin McClurg (57:47.02)
I had a kind of a similar complacency type thing that ended better in terms of the lack of trauma. Mine was a throwing reserve that wasn't attached. I've talked about this on the show before, but it was switching gear, late night, coming back from a comp, dark, didn't want to wake my family.
just blew it, just completely blew it. And then flew the next day, you know, long, long drive and then doing some acro training over the dirt and through and wasn't attached, you know, just the most basic, most idiotic mistake there is. And then the second part of it was that because I was flying, you know, a different, I mean, I'd been on my Compartus stuff and suddenly I'm on my...
supair, you know, Acro kit, I just, it didn't flash into my mind immediately that I had a second reserve. So I watched the one fly away from me and went and literally thought, wow, that's funny. And it was just perfectly deployed reserve that wasn't attached to me. But, you know, had I reacted faster, I did end up throwing my second one, but it took some amount of time, you know, it seemed to me to be forever. It was probably
two seconds, but I was already very low and I threw the first one. So the second one I threw and I watched it roll out to the end and then I hit the ground. And so it didn't have a chance, it didn't deploy. But it was along the same type of lines that it was the gear switch that my mind just wasn't. And ever since then, we always talk about you need these cheap mistakes. Ever since then, when I go from a hike and fly to my comp kit, to my acro kit,
I do it every flight now where it's, you know, my hand goes down to the, now I'm on a different pit of gear now. This is where this reserve is because it's different. You know, we've done a lot of talks over the years and the magazine's been very good about covering this, that they should all be the same. But until that time, you know, we have to just
Gavin McClurg (59:52.668)
remind our brains over and over and over and over, where this stuff is. You didn't have time for reserve, but it sounds like the switching of the gear is, that's gotten me as well, the brake thing. That's also gotten me. Some of us fly a lot of different kit, and you especially fly a ton of different kit.
Marcus (01:00:13.039)
Yeah, and it's not something...
But, and it's not something I didn't know about because a friend of the magazine, somebody who writes for the magazine, Andy Pag, had a big crash in Nepal a few years ago where he'd been flying tandem all season, jumped on his solo wing, forgot the brake travel was much less, span, hit the hill, and broke his back. And that's, I've always remembered him telling us about that. And so it's not something I didn't know, but you don't think about it.
Gavin McClurg (01:00:19.724)
Sure.
Gavin McClurg (01:00:31.685)
on it.
Gavin McClurg (01:00:35.135)
Mm.
Marcus (01:00:46.23)
And you need to think about these things, especially when...
Gavin McClurg (01:00:49.236)
God, a lot of lessons here. Given the span of your flying, and you had the one accident in Switzerland at the World Cup, this one sounds like kind of complacency, margin, gear. How do you incorporate this? What are you thinking about in terms of just when you do get back in the sky?
I mean, that sounds like that would be it. Those are all great lessons. You know, like I said, we need these, but.
Marcus (01:01:17.726)
Yeah, I think, I think, yeah, to make sure you're in the moment all the time and think about, yeah, every flight is a flight. It's not just a little fly down to go and land. Yeah, once you're off the ground, the consequences are high if you make mistakes. So you have to treat every flight with respect.
Gavin McClurg (01:01:28.549)
Yeah.
Gavin McClurg (01:01:37.152)
Yeah.
Hmm. I wonder how it's, how has it impacted your wife's view of flying? Is she less excited about it? Same, has it impacted her?
Marcus (01:01:53.238)
Well, actually she's not flying at the moment anyway, because she did her ACL last year. So she's on a recovery from that, but she's due to start flying before me, I think. So she seems quite up for it. I thought it might affect her as well, but I'm sure it has. You can't be around accidents and not be affected, can you? Especially when it's people that are close to you. And...
Gavin McClurg (01:01:58.887)
Oh. Oh shoot.
Gavin McClurg (01:02:07.84)
Good.
Gavin McClurg (01:02:18.944)
Sure.
Marcus (01:02:23.67)
But she's worked in the industry. She gets to hear about, I mean, we get to hear about a lot of accidents. So it's not something we don't know about. I think maybe if you're a weekend pilot, you can maybe ignore that side of it a bit more. But if you're in comps and around, yeah, writing for the magazine, we hear about probably every night, lots of the accidents that happen.
So it's not like something we can get away from knowing about.
Gavin McClurg (01:02:59.604)
Hmm. That's interesting. I was just actually talking last night with my wife, not about accidents and not about paragliding, but there's a Dave Chappelle bit in his latest, you know, comedy, standup comedy series where he, he starts talking to a young person in the audience and says, you know, I, I really feel for you because, you know, back in my day, I remember being at school when the challenger blew up and
It was a huge deal, the whole world. And people were, you know, it's like Kennedy assassination. You know where you were, you remember it. It's a big deal. And now with social media and the news around the world, everybody knows everything, if you want to. You know, you have access to everything and you just become Gaza, Ukraine, bad stuff every day.
all the time and it's hard to feel much emotion about really bad things because you're inundated. Oh, bad, scroll, scroll. Our sport, unfortunately, does have a lot of this and I have noticed even in myself that some things are just, they just kind of rush aside. Another pound.
Marcus (01:04:19.306)
Yeah, and maybe you do become desensitized.
Gavin McClurg (01:04:20.168)
And then there are some like Nick Nainans that really, you get desensitized, that's the word. And there are some like Nick Nainans that just, I think really shaped the foundation of, well, if he could get hurt, I mean, and obviously he was taking enormous risks mostly, but not that day, not the day that he went in. It sounded like a pretty reasonable day to go flying. Yeah, these do, in a sense, not set you back, but they grab you, don't they? I mean, they just.
Whoa, I mean, it's that realization that if it can happen to him or her, it can happen to everybody.
Marcus (01:04:57.182)
Yeah. I think that it's interesting what you said about not taking risks, because I think that's one of the things that I've maybe struggled a little bit with is the fact that I thought this was a really safe thing I was doing. Yeah, that the hike and fly thing, this particular style of hike and fly is something I did a lot and it was always something I felt was very safe because it was from a known site.
Gavin McClurg (01:05:12.221)
Right.
Gavin McClurg (01:05:15.932)
that day, those conditions of.
Gavin McClurg (01:05:22.891)
Mmm.
Marcus (01:05:27.134)
in a, you know, with good weather always. And it's not like fighting cross country through big peaks or on strong days when it's going off. It's just, it felt like a safe thing to do. And then still I managed to hurt myself doing that. So that's.
Gavin McClurg (01:05:35.07)
Yeah.
Gavin McClurg (01:05:39.38)
Yeah, I think.
Gavin McClurg (01:05:45.82)
Yeah, I mean, I get that's the that was a more articulate way of saying what I was trying to say is that I in some ways I don't like these accidents more. It's it's damn it really. I mean, a really, really good pilot who's very experienced, who's got a ton of years under his belt. And, you know, it wasn't you weren't competing in the X Alps when it's pulling 60k an hour, you know, you're up for a morning perfect day.
Marcus (01:05:56.254)
Yeah, they do make you think more I think.
Marcus (01:06:09.913)
That was perfect day.
Gavin McClurg (01:06:14.668)
I went in pretty hard and beer on a pretty perfect day, where it was just, what the hell just happened? And it was, it's a, absolutely, yeah, complacency. It's a chapter in the book, as you remember. You helped me write that book a lot. That's it. That's an interesting, I mean, for sure.
Marcus (01:06:24.066)
But then that's complacency, isn't it? Yeah, when it's full on, you're in the game. You're fully engaged.
Gavin McClurg (01:06:39.728)
I spent a lot of time with Jurgen, the safety director of the Rebel XM this year up at Tracy May. When we were waiting for Ellie to come through. And so we'd seen a few athletes come through and we had a long chat about this very thing. Just the enormous risks that Kriegel is willing to put himself in to win. And yet...
You know, we don't see many accidents at that level. We have over the years, we've seen accidents, but they haven't been, you know, knock on wood, there hasn't been a bad one. And it is quite interesting, I've never reflected on this a lot, that you are taking so much more risk and yet you are.
at much less risk in the race, I believe, doing it. Because I could not take that kind of risk a day before the race or a day after the race. Pretty much guaranteed I'm going to pound. Because you're just in it. And you have this invincibility, which I know is not.
Marcus (01:07:28.802)
because you're engaged.
Gavin McClurg (01:07:46.02)
accurate, but it's a mental, you are in it. There's nothing else. There's no other distractions. There's no complacency. You're on the wall. You're paying attention.
Marcus (01:07:58.154)
Yeah, I'm sure. I think, yeah, I mean, I've done some hike and fly races my experience of them was incredibly mentally draining because your brain is just going all the time and you're on that heightened level while you're flying and finding takeoffs and preparing to take off.
Gavin McClurg (01:08:13.737)
Mmm.
Yeah, right.
Marcus (01:08:26.038)
But yes, you're taking risks, but because your brain's working that much harder, you're taking control of them, taking control of the situation. So you're less likely to have an accident, even though you're in a riskier environment. But yeah, you don't operate like that normally, do you?
Gavin McClurg (01:08:34.028)
Mm.
Gavin McClurg (01:08:42.107)
Yeah, it's...
Gavin McClurg (01:08:45.948)
No, and it is interesting, I mean, to, in my experience, to fly well and to cover kilometers, you really want to be more in a flow state. You want to be very relaxed. It's kind of the opposite side of what we're talking about, you know? I mean, but then when you're in a flow state, of course, you're letting your...
system which knows what it's doing take over and you are incredibly reactive and on it and your speed is your but it's it is interesting isn't it because you don't feel very you feel very relaxed and almost uh you know when i perform the best i'm almost asleep i just you know kind of just
Marcus (01:09:23.879)
I think you're...
Yeah. But then when you look back, you go, actually I was on it. I can tell I was on it. But it was just happening sort of almost back in the subconscious, a lot of it.
Gavin McClurg (01:09:37.276)
It is, yeah, right? Slow thinking, fast thinking. Marcus, thanks for sharing your story. I really appreciate it. It's probably hard to relive some of that stuff, but I think it's useful and it's a good reminder for all of us of what we're doing. Aviation's dangerous.
Marcus (01:10:02.998)
You should bear that in mind when you take off. That's why he complains and say, every flight's a flight.
Gavin McClurg (01:10:09.193)
Yeah, every flight's a flight. Yeah, you have to have that base jumper attitude to everything. You know, this one could kill you. Marcus, thanks. I appreciate it. I'm excited for the healing you've had and the healing to come. And excited to see you back in the air one of these days. And there's no rush. We've all learned there's plenty of time to partake in this incredible activity. So good luck. And
Marcus (01:10:13.995)
Yeah.
Marcus (01:10:29.526)
Yeah, I'm sure there will be someone.
Gavin McClurg (01:10:37.489)
Yeah, fast healing.
Marcus (01:10:39.458)
Thank you. Great to speak to you.
