Comps and Events

‘Here’s to finding your dreams’ – Violeta Jimenez

13 August, 2024, by Cross Country | Photos: Anna Berger / PWC

The USA’s Violeta Jimenez stormed the Paragliding World Cup in Caneli, Turkey last week, winning the Women’s class and coming second on the overall podium too.

She was just behind Martin Jovanoski (MKD) who took the top spot, and just ahead of USA teammate Nick Greece who was in third.

On the Women’s podium Violeta was more than 400 points clear of the next woman, Katalin Juhasz from Hungary. Silvia Buzzi Ferraris (ITA) was third.

The competition saw some epic weather and a consistently high cloudbase with seven tasks completed.

The week kicked off on 4 August with a 93km race to goal. With base just under 4,000m, 7m/s climbs and numerous convergence lines at the end of the day 106 out of the 111 pilots had made it in. As a result, the task committee increased the difficulty of Task 2 to a 101km race to goal.

Task 3 was 89km, Task 4 was shortened to 78km but increased again to 121km for Task 5 on a route that saw pilots reach Lake Selda flying much of the route under convergence lines.

By then Violeta had established her lead in the women’s ranking and she went into the final task in third place overall with Darko Stankovski in second. However, a bold move from Peter Budai upset that plan, Darko fell back and Violeta was able to take the second spot on the podium.

Afterwards she said: “When I started flying, I had never seen women on the overall podiums and wasn’t sure if it was possible, but it was my dream. So here’s to finding your dreams.”

She had previously shared that this podium meant more to her than just winning – she wanted to do it for all women, to showcase that women belong on overall podiums and are just as capable as men in this sport.

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