HGFA Skysailor Magazine

SKY SAILOR 7 July | August 2019 T aking place in the picturesque town of Linzhou, Wally Arcidiacono, Felipe Rezende, Paul Kimber and Zane Priebbenow hope to make Australia proud. There will be a total of 28 different countries competing in this event, from as far as Chile, India, Brazil, Nepal, New Zealand and even Belarus. The event is set against the beautiful backdrop of the Taihang Canyon Scenic Area, one of the most stunning places to fly with its grand-canyon style topography of red rock gorges and potential for both mountain and flatlands. Competition will be tough, as four pilots taking part have won a World Cup before. Michael Kuffer (Reunion Island and Bir, India), Maxime Bellemin (Serbia), Audret Eliseev (winner of the world cup in Linhzuo 2010) and Michael Sigel (winner of the World Cup including the ninth super final). Adrian Hachen, a runner up of the 8th Super Final is hoping to move up a step on the podium at this year’s World Cup and Jumming Song, who won first in the Pre PWC in Linzhou are set to fly. Also competing is Meryl Delferriere, the highest ranking pilot from the super final, and winner of the ladies’ ranking six times, including the Super Final and Coeur de Savoie World Cup. World, European and Super Final Champion and the only lady to have ever won a World Cup task, Petra Slivova is set to compete along with Wooyoung Jang who came a close second in the task Petra won. There will also be a lot of new faces as for 32 pilots, this will be there first time competing in the event. Certainly not a newbie, the legendary Mr Gin Seok Song, who recently celebrated 40 years of flying will also be taking part in his first World Cup. This year there will be five different CCC gliders: Enzo 3 (Ozone), Boomerang 11 (Gin), Guru (UP), Spectra (Flow Paragliders) and the Icepeak Evox (Niviuk). Davinci Gliders will also be putting their new RFC glider through its paces in Linzhuo. The team competition is set to be tough as the World Cup now has 19 partners, each with a team. Keep up with all the action via the PWCA App and the pwaca.org website where you can read live commentary, follow the pilots and keep up with the scores. Paragliding World Cup – China At time of writing, four top Australian pilots are competing against the world’s best at the PWC in China, held 8 to 15 June.