CIVL have announced that they will unfreeze the World Pilot Ranking System (WPRS) on 1 November 2021.
The aim of the WPRS is, “to rank pilots, by discipline, all over the world, based on their performance in sanctioned competitions, both Category 1 and Category 2”.
It was frozen on 1 April 2020 because the coronavirus pandemic put a stop to many national and international competitions, the results of which are used to determine the rankings. And although the number of competitions being held is not yet back to pre-pandemic levels, it is improving.
The FAI wrote:
“Although such parameters as the number of competitions and the number of participating nations have not yet reached pre-pandemic values there is a steady improvement especially with HG Class Sport, PG XC, and PG Aerobatics that are now at about 90% and the others already exceeding 60%. The tendency is positive”.
Joerg Ewald is in charge of the unfreezing process. He says, “Over the next 18 months, every month we will reduce the period covered by the WPRS by one more month until we’re back to the regular 36 months. During this time, as is the case right now, only the oldest 36 months will see the degradation built into WPRS. All newer comps will remain at full Td value.”
Honorin Hamard (FR) currently leads the Paragliding rankings of the WPRS, followed by Ulrich Prinz (DE) and Russell Ogden (GB); In hang gliding Class 1 Christian Ciech (IT) tops the leaderboard ahead of Marco Laurenzi (IT) and Mario Alonzi (FR).
Find all the current rankings here.
