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I think that when you want to reach a goal
you have to realize that there will be ups and downs,
mentally and physically, and you will be challenged,
and you have to be able to torture yourself.
This means you go for training
even if you are too tired from the day;
you have to do it because you know it's necessary.
You can't just do what you feel like doing; that would get you nowhere.
You need a goal.
You have to know what is right for you.
You can push yourself and have fun doing it.
Pushing yourself means training hard,
noticing how your mind and body work
and how you can function at 100%.
It's a great feeling, and luckily I enjoy it.
♪ (light electronic music) ♪
First of all, I try to find freedom to be creative,
and when you are creative it is in your nature
to look for challenges, your own challenges.
I think Red Bull Air Race is definitely a challenge
that demands the most from me.
♪ (hard rock music) ♪
♪ (light acoustic music) ♪
Especially with the life I have right now,
being an Air Race pilot,
it's important to know where you are at home,
and it's not about the results; it's about something fundamental in me.
My whole life has been based
on a philosophy of community,
community in climbing, achieving something together,
having an adventure together, so for me it is quite normal
to escape from a world where you quickly feel alienated
and go where I feel comfortable.
In this case being together with my friends,
and in the case of Robert and Jürgen,
just going climbing
and just spending a nice day outside.
This passion always characterized Hannes.
It has never been about the results, but about the idea and the passion
and then the consistency of doing it and really working on it,
going much farther than others, is something I would say
really distinguishes Hannes.
Looking back, it doesn't surprise me that Hannes got to this position,
because the things he has done--
with climbing it was always about achievement,
and then with paragliding he explored new things and achieved great results
and the same was true with B.A.S.E. jumping
and the same with flying,
and because of that I am not surprised
that he got into this position in the air race.
♪ (marimba music) ♪
It's funny, we always had a certain image,
whether that was the image of a tinkerer
or many said I had an aggressive style of flying.
I think not much will change in the image, because that's me--
I add the whole team a touch,
I have always tried to prepare myself as perfectly as possible.
Maybe with a bit more experience, with a bit more coolness
I will at least try to get into the competition,
because I have hopefully learned a little in the past few years.
I have discovered that if I always do what I love
and what makes me happy, then my life works itself out.
Then I'm good at what I do, I'm able to compete,
and I'm happy, it fits with my environment,
and ultimately this led to a Red Bull Air Race,
from a combination of everything I have learned.
♪ (acoustic guitar music) ♪
When I look back on my life and my career
I find that it's all based on a definite drive for freedom.
You want to climb a mountain, you want to see what's behind,
what is possible in life in general, so mountain climbing
was the perfect kind of game for me.
Adventure--for me it has always made more sense than going to school.
I learned everything there that I needed to learn,
everything which seems important to me now.
It has a lot to do with trust in a team and in a partner,
has a lot to do with taking responsibility and effort and challenge,
dealing with risk, and so on.
And the rest just happened.
I have had trust in myself,
so I don't force myself to go a certain way,
but instead I trust life itself, whatever happens,
and what happened was paragliding.
♪ (light music) ♪
There are impressions which stick with you in any sport
and with flying, I can still feel the fascination I felt
lifting off the ground for the first time, and I think the impression shaped me,
along with my need to experience freedom and adventure.
As a 15-year-old kid,
that was a dream come true.
I had 100,000 visions at that point,
visions of life in the future, dreams.
What could be better than, as a child,
suddenly feeling a purpose in life
and having only the drive to do that? I still have that.
♪ (acoustic string music with harp) ♪
This drive to do something new
and to feel that you can make the impossible possible,
and everything together with my friends--
we were the first to jump from high mountains,
at a time with BASE jumping was not yet "in,"
based on a philosophy of life,
and I think the curiosity
and the drive was there to develop myself further.
This singlemindedness and focus
and a certain amount of professionalism
was there from the beginning.
Hannes always had the camera with him, just to document things.
Who knows what could come from it?
And it did work out well.
Pictures were developed from that, adventures were documented
in a way which then became standard.
The professionalism was there too, which is necessary
to make these achievements possible,
because you can't get that far just doing this as a hobby.
The logical next step was then
to develop myself further,
and when I saw aerobatics for the first time, that interested me.
Suddenly it was possible.
When you sit in a stunt plane yourself, suddenly you feel no great difference
between stunt flying or paragliding or mountain climbing.
Whatever you do, you are absorbed completely in your enthusiasm,
and so it happened that suddenly
I was a Red Bull Air Race pilot.
You can live out your dream, and I'm doing that now.
♪ (electronic music) ♪
I was able to achieve a lot at the Air Race
because of a lot of previous experience, and because I found over the years
that the sport itself, whatever you're doing at the moment
really isn't the most important thing in life, so I was able to keep
a certain distance, and if you have that distance
you can observe yourself.
When you can observe yourself, you can learn.
When you observe a lot and learn, and you add diligence,
and the intention to play the game of the Air Race as well as you can,
and you want to win, you can be very successful.
There is certainly a bit of luck involved as well,
along with having the right team, and being at the right point in your life.
Everything needs to work together
in order for you to succeed and become the world champion.
♪ (acoustic guitar music) ♪