We interviewed Goran Dimiskovski, president of the Paragliding World Cup Association, for the Naked Pilot feature in Issue 222 (August 2021).
It’s been a long two years. I was injured in September 2019 while launching at the PWC in Andradas, Brazil. I hurt my lower leg on take-off, simply turning around. It took six months to recover, and after that Covid arrived and everything stopped.
I started to fly as a kid in the national aeroclub of Macedonia. I went through all the stages: aeromodelling, parachuting, sailplanes, and finally in 1991/2 paragliding. A guy brought a glider from Austria to Macedonia and I saw it while I was skiing. I said “Wow! This is for me.”
It was complicated to import a glider to Macedonia at that time. My first glider was a competition wing, a Paratech P3. So I started training with that. I survived. The guy I saw on the ski slopes taught me the basics.
The P3 was difficult but manageable. I moved to the famous P4, which was a dangerous glider and impossible to manage. It was too demanding. I did some research and got in touch with Apco Aviation and ended up becoming their dealer in Macedonia. I had a low-end Apco glider and progressed to the Extra in 1995. I consider I really started to fly then.
I started to compete on the Apco Zen in 1996/7 and since that moment I have been actively competing and involved in competition.
I ran a dealership and a school in Macedonia. It was a messy period trying to communicate with companies as there was no internet. But I formed a school and it was big business. Around that time we had many conflicts in the Balkans. Macedonia was peaceful, not directly involved, but being south of Serbia many soldiers came down on the weekend for fun. Lots of them did courses. We progressed and built a big club.
Running a school collided with my competition ambitions. I was obsessed with international comps, but I was a bit late with discovering the potential of Krushevo. We first saw the potential when hang glider pilots held a competition there in the 1990s, but the real boom started with Nearbirds designer Vladimir Perevalov in the 2010s. He was obsessed with it, and he organised the first PWC in Krushevo in 2012.
It’s difficult to appreciate now, but in the 1990s air sports in Eastern Europe were held in high esteem. There were many events and small competitions, because the local regions would support you.
My first attempt at competing in the PWC was in 1999 at Kobarid in Slovenia, organised by my good friend Xavier Murillo. About 15 of us went there as unknown pilots and managed to get on the list. But the first day of the comp Xavier forbade us all from taking part as we were untested. So my first encounter with the World Cup was not so pleasant!
My first proper World Cup was in 2004 in Bassano. And I haven’t stopped since. And of course Xavier, who sadly died in Peru 10 years ago this July, became a great friend.
Wings today are incredible, incomparable. As a competition pilot if you don’t love these wings then something is wrong with you! But if I have to pick one, the Apco Zen was my favourite glider. I will always remember the moment I opened it on the ground. The planform was different, risers were different, it was all new, real stuff. My current glider is a Gin Leopard.
I have an honest love of competition flying. I simply love it. It is the simplicity. It’s a self-challenging process. I didn’t fly for two years but last week I flew a competition in Macedonia and the feeling is the same. You disconnect, you take off, you’re in the goal or not. That’s what I like.
My involvement in organising competitions is because I believe in the potential. And I am good at event management. I started in 2006 at the European Championships in Serbia. It was a mess, the meet director just disappeared, and Xavier was asked to step in. I helped him. I was a like a blue helmet of the UN forces, my job was to bring the tension down.
The World Cup now is a very efficient, high quality, plug-and-play competition organisation. We can go anywhere in the world, arrive, set up and run a world class competition. Over the years we have built a small team, with shared high values, that caters to hundreds of pilots each year, and that is what I am most proud of.
