The paragliding accuracy competition season is slowing down and just 10 competitions remain in the events calendar. The season started with a category 2 Red Hats Paragliding Accuracy Cup in Kaliningrad, Russia in January and the last one - at the moment is a cat 2 Mizoram Paragliding Accuracy Open in December in India. We have had 66 category 2 events in total and two category 1 events. Safety record at our competitions is very good and the number of pilots and countries participating is growing. 2058 pilots in the WPRS and of these 264 (13 %) are female pilots. A good year for PGA!

Major events

Our first major event for the year was the 1st FAI Asian-Oceanic Paragliding Accuracy Championship in Saraburi, Thailand. The championship was not as big as expected but the competition was fierce and China and Thailand went home with the medals. Pilots from Laos, Mongolia and Iran attended for the first time.

The 6th European Accuracy Championships in Kobarid, Slovenia was a success. Smooth organization and good weather provided fine conditions for the pilots and officials. Slovenia took the top places this time. The Texair target system was used for the first time and all were happy with the wind speed indications and the big scoreboard. Live transmission from the competition site will most likely be the next step in our coming cat 1s.

Upcoming events

Next World Championships – our 10th! - will be held in Vršac, Serbia May 15th-25th 2019.(Note the change of dates!) The organizer wants to make all that is possible for a full competition; this is the reason for an earlier start of the event. This has been accepted by the CIVL Bureau and will be put forward to the Plenary as well. Pilot qualification will be used and being in the top 500 in WPRS will be required for individual pilots. The allocation will be done according to the WPRS in the beginning of February 2019. 

The CIVL Bureau has also accepted the bid from Kazakhstan for the next Asian PGA Championships. The dates are May 27th-June 4th 2020 with a pre-event on 22nd-25th of June in 2019. The location is Taldykorgan.

The test event of the 7th European PGA Championships will take place in Sibiu, Romania on October 2nd-6th 2019. The main event will also take place in October, exact dates are 4th-11th of October 2020.

Rules

The PGA committee works on with the development of the sport and discussion are going on about the WPRS, adjustments to judging code, allocation – of course, and what requirements do we need to have for the footwear.  All proposals will be put forward to the NAC at the beginning of December. Our sport is public friendly but we can surely do much more on that front.  The rule changes introduced in May 2018 have proved to be the right ones and now we need to take the next step.

Judging

Many NACs/clubs have taken judging training seriously and held seminars during the year. Besides the seminars organized by the CIVL in conjunction with cat 1 events, there have been several national seminars and the skill level of judges in going up fast. Judging information is continuously updated on the CIVL page under Accuracy – Judges Corner.