CIVL have revealed plans to create the first FAI Paragliding Sports Class World Championships and have pencilled it in for 2025.
Posting to the FAI’s website, CIVL said they were excited to announce they were to create a new Sports Class ranking for paragliding and the first Sports Class world championships.
They said the new Sports Class WPRS Ranking will be similar to the existing Open WPRS ranking. “Pilots will accumulate points for the Sports Class WPRS when flying wings rated EN-C or lower in Category 2 competitions,” CIVL said.
CIVL’s World Pilot Ranking System ranks the world’s hang glider and paraglider competition pilots in cross country, accuracy and acro. Pilots who compete have their results entered automatically and are given an overall score to determine their current world ranking. In paragliding cross country Honorin Hamard is currently world number one, with Maxime Pinot in second place.
Creating a new Sports Class ranking system and a Sports Class World Championships will mean pilots will compete while flying the new breed of two-line EN C wings.
No more details were released, but CIVL said that the ranking and competition format, including selection criteria for the World Championships, would be worked out over the coming months. They will be presented at the annual FAI plenary (annual meeting) in February where they will need to get formal approval.
Clearly confident of getting that approval, CIVL said they are already accepting bids for the first FAI Paragliding Sports Class World Championships. Bids must be in by 30 January 2024.
The FAI is the World Air Sports Federation and CIVL is the FAI’s free flight commission. Together they sanction international free flight competition and the sport’s world records.
