Chikyong Ha won the first round of the new Paragliding World Cup Asian Tour which took place in Hexigten, China from 7-14 July.
The Korean pilot did not get much time to recover after his huge efforts in the Red Bull X-Alps 2019 – the closing ceremony in Monaco was just a week before the competition started in Hexigten. The PWC Asian Tour is a new series, set up to help develop cross-country and competition flying in Asia. A second round will take place in Korea in October.
Daniel Arcidiacono (AU) finished second and Ilkyu Park (KO) third. The top three were all flying Gin Boomerang 11s. Hyunhee KIM (KO) was first woman, in seventh place overall on her Ozone Enzo 3, just six points behind Mr. Gin Seok Song himself who was flying a Boomerang 11.
41 pilots took part in this inaugural race, which saw three valid tasks. On the equipment front, it wasn’t wall-to-wall two-liners as we are used to seeing in the main PWC tour, and a broad range of manufacturers were represented, with some of the competitors even flying EN-Bs.
Results
Overall
- Chikyong Ha, KO, Gin Boomerang 11, 609 points
- Daniel Arcidiacono, AU, Gin Boomerang 11, 583 points
- Ilkyu Park, KO, Gin Boomerang 11, 579 points
Women
- Hyunhee Kim, KO, Ozone Enzo 3, 516 points (7th overall)
- Yingyi Chen, CN, Ozone Zeno, 357 points (24th overall)
- Di Wang, CN, Ozone Mantra 6, 333 points (26th overall)