From the 6th to the 17th of December the World’s best pilots will be taking to the skies above Valle de Bravo, 150km west of Mexico City, for the last event in this 30th anniversary year of the Paragliding World Cup.
El Peñón, Temascaltepec is a well-known competition venue having already hosted two Super Finals (2011 and 2015) and a World Cup (2014). It is famous for its consistent and reliable flying conditions. The best time to fly is November to May with the XC season kicking off properly in December, when the conditions allow 100 km triangles with 4,000m cloud bases.
The launch was expanded in 2008 in preparation for the World Championships. The ramp has space for at least four paragliders at the same time and allows 150 pilots to take off in less than 40 minutes.
There are many favourites to win this year’s title, from local pilot Manuel Quintanilla, to any of the staggering 21 pilots taking part who have already won a World Cup. They have won an incredible 39 World Cups between them!
5 pilots competing have already won the Super Final: Luc Armant (defending champion), Charles Cazaux, Pierre Remy, Aaron Durogati (twice!) and Maxime Pinot.
Not to mention the 5 World Champions and 4 European Champions who will be there trying to win this ultimate title.
Even more impressive still, out of the 15 ladies competing, 9 have already won the ladies’ ranking. They have won an incredible 46 World Cups between them!
3 have already won the Super Final: Meryl Delferriere, Seiko Fukuoka Naville (defending champion and three times winner) and Keiko Hiraki.
The ladies hold 9 World and European titles between them.
Whoever wins, will be crowned with the most prestigious title in paragliding history, in a sky where half the pilots have a letter A, the highest possible qualification letter. Or, put another way, almost half of those taking part have either been in the top five in a World Cup or won a task!
Read the profiles of the top pilots on Instagram:https://www.instagram.com/officialparaglidingworldcup/
Keep up with the live commentary (now available in 8 different languages), the scores and the tracking on https://live.pwca.org
Follow the Flymaster tracking: https://lt.flymaster.net/bs.php?grp=4824
Philippe Broers’ videos: https://www.youtube.com/c/paraglidingworldcup
Photo gallery of pilots competing: https://live.pwca.org/photos.php
Websites: https://www.alas.com.mx and https://pwcamexico.com/flyingsite.php
Promotional video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fxLLEbHWLGc
Text: Ruth Jessop Photo: Ulric Jessop/Alas del Hombre