The reigning champion, Nigel Hopkins, and his biggest rival, Patrick Davidson, arrived in the City of Roses last week already in order to do their last bit of preparation heading into the big event.

Hopkins has just about won everything there is to win South Africa and his main goal to defend his title, but he knows, with Davidson competing, it is not a given.

“It is the South Africa champs and we do have the top aerobatic guys in the country here,” Hopkins told OFM Sport.

“We don’t come to Bloemfontein that often, we try and spread the nationals around.

“Performance wise we try and have the nationals at sea-level because the aircraft does perform a lot better down there.

“For the guys that compete internationally we like to afford them an opportunity to train at sea-level as well. It is a club with a lot of new pilots and we want to give them a lot of exposure as well. Most of the pilots are from Johannesburg, although we do have pilots from all across the country.

“Bloem is quite central, it has great facilities, the hospitality is great and it is always great to come back here.”

Davidson, who is the first and only South African to compete in the Red Bull World Championships, told OFM Sport that he expects the competition to be fierce.

“It’s really easy to make a mistake, especially with competition that is really fierce. It always has be really fierce, especially between Nigel and myself, but I’m looking forward to it, I think that is going to be a great contest.

“I like to give him a chance as well, so I’ve got to keep it fair.”

The National Championships at Tempe begun on Wednesday and will conclude on Sunday.

@MorganPiek OFM Sport