Today was looking great so we decide to have a long task but not to long as were thinking tomorrow will be even better to go real long. So we decide on a 234kms task with a turnpoint to keep us out of West wylong airspace. We have been having a race start for the top 30 pilots in the comp and it has been working well so far. The set up today has improved heaps and things are starting to look very organised for towing. Once at cloudbase I had to wait around for about 20 mins waiting for the start to tick over. everyone is there and soon we are all off and racing with high base and good climbs this was going to be a great day. 10 mins into the task I hear Davo come on the radio and say someone has just tumbled and they are going down. I quickly turn around and see a parachute in full length but not attached to the glider. It was evident that the pilot had somehow come detached from the glider and was now in free fall. I watched in awe as the chute was not opening I quickly gave co-ordinates to the Drew the meet head and there was a ambulance on the way imediately. This was a pilots worse nightmare and I could not believe what i was seeing, the chute never opened from what I saw and the pilot hit the ground extremly hard. It is not fully clear at this point what happened so I will not speculate. It was very hard to keep going but I knew there was not much hope for the pilot and that there was nothing I could do. It was on my mind all day and I was having troubles getting motivated. I made turnpoint with a gaggle of guys and then went a different way and got in front of the gaggle and was now below Robert who had been leading from the begining. The others soon caught up and we were all flying together for the last 120kms. to be continued.....