Ozone SRS 2025 kicks off in Colombia

The first competition of the 2025 Sports class Racing Series season kicks off in Santa Fe, Colombia, on Sunday and will run from 23 February to 2 March. Ruth Jessop gives us the view from launch.

This year once again sees the SRS (EN-C gliders and below) taking to the sunny skies in beautiful, fun and friendly Colombia. This time we have found our way through the jungle to the lesser-known flying site of Santa Fe de Antioquia, the most northerly town in the Cauca Valley. Colombians have been flying here for 30 years and managed to keep it a big secret – up until now!

Santa Fe is 500m above sea level with an average temp of 28C. The coldest it ever gets is 23 degrees! Being in the Tropics, the weather changes very quickly making forecasting difficult. We have a great forecast for next week … so anything could happen!

Santa Fe is one of the oldest towns in Colombia and gives the impression of living on Tuk Tuk time, as nothing larger is allowed to traverse the century-old, cobbled streets.

The competition will give the 130 pilots taking part a chance to explore and marvel at the beautiful tree-covered mountains in this new racing resort as they look down on the meandering muddy waters of the Cauca River. Those who have enjoyed flying here over the last few days have reported finding thermals everywhere!

SRS races are both solo and team events. To help keep up with the exciting team competition we have a new teams tracking map and leaderboard on the srs.live app.

With thirty teams taking part, the team competition has really taken off with Luke Nicol and Matthijs Groeneveld heading up the all new Gin team along with Brett Janaway (founder of the SRS) and Abel Trimino.

This competition will also be a great chance to see how Ozone’s new lightweight version of the Photon fares. The Lyght is being flown by seven pilots including paragliding celebrity, Andreas ‘Pepe’ Malecki.

Colombian superstar Lucho Jiminez is very excited to be taking part in the SRS, test flying the new Nova Vortex, a lighter, faster version of the very successful Codex. A bit of sibling rivalry will be at play in the thermals as his two brothers, Felipe and Hugo, are also taking part.

Wings and harnesses from fourteen different manufacturers will be taking part, making it far from a one wing/harness show.

With twenty women taking part, Shauin Kao has taken on the role of Women’s Team leader, promoting women in flying, making our new team ‘The Sisterhood’, one to watch here in Colombia.

The vegetation looks as if it is on steroids. The pilots are on fire and meet director, the always smiling Sebastian Ospina, is ready with some innovative tasks! About 50,000 pilots in the world fly EN B and C gliders so winning a task in this event will be a massive achievement.

Follow the competition on our free web app: srs.live with analysis and photos as the race unfolds. The overall leader is shown in yellow on the tracking, second in green and the leading woman in pink. Colour coding on the tracking shows where the leadout points are worth the most.

We will also be posting on Instagram @sportsclassracingseries.

A big thank you to Airnomads who have organised the event and to Ozone Gliders for being our partner providing some amazing prizes, including a brand-new harness.

srs.live