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As the evening approached we were in a good position with lots of ballast. Clive and Luc could see a thunderstorm coming in but we thought we could keep going and fly for another hour to see if we could overtake the German teams.

We were above the Innsbruck Valley and within 20 minutes the thunderstorm had caught us up so we made the decision to land. We could cope with rain but thunder and lightning was a different matter. Had we been flying a helium balloon we probably would have carried on and flown for a second night but it wasn’t worth taking the risk with hydrogen. We were very surprised that the French team continued to fly in those conditions.

We made a stand up landing in a field in Worgl.  Within minutes Nige and Bob were there - absolutely amazing. Having enlisted the help of the farmer whose field we had landed in, we had the balloon packed away and were in the pub within an hour.

We recuperated in a hotel in the village and are heading back today.