French pilot and serious adventurer Antoine Girard has laid down some of the boldest lines on Earth, and he's been doing it for a long time. Antoine competed in the Red Bull X-Alps four times, starting in 2013 where he found himself on the podium (3rd), again in 2015 (4th), 2017 (badly injured), and 2019 (retired due to continued trouble with the injury sustained in 2017). He's pulled off some of the most extreme expeditions in paragliding and mountaineering in Pakistan on 6 different trips, flew from west to east across the Andes, was nearly killed in Eritrea (by people, not flying), flew the length of the south island of New Zealand, and is currently traversing the United States from the Mexico border to the Northern Canadian Rockies.

The Red Bull live tracking is great, but it misses out on all the behind-the-scenes and in this talk we dive into what the fans don't get to see. We talk training, supplements, our decision on using the nightpass the first night, mistakes made, good moves, dicey launches, crazy weather and how the 2017 race was the most brutal yet. In 12 days I did 16 1/2 marathons, climbed the height of Everest 4 times (34,000 meters of vertical ascent), flew over 1,000 km- and I was still 308 km from goal! Only two athletes made it, Chrigel Maurer won for his 5th straight time, and rookie Benoit Outers made it in just before the time expired. 5 athletes were eliminated and 7 withdrew due to injury or exhaustion.