First titles in parapenting

Press, 8 March 1989, Page 33

First titles in parapenting

A Swiss competitor, Bernard Stocker, emerged as the over-all champion at the first New Zealand parapente championships at Coronet Peak, near Queenstown, at the week-end. Stocker was placed first ahead of the top New Zealand man, Robert Eymann, of Queenstown, with Andrew Findlay (Wellington) third. Louise Heraud, also of Wellington, eclipsed Pauline Bevin (Queenstown) to secure the national women’s title. According to the competition’s safety officer, Paul Van Der Kaag, the conditions during the week-end were perfect. “The winds were south to south-west, excellent for Coronet Peak.” The competitors were subjected to a busy schedule of assigned tasks each day from 8 a.m. to about 7 p.m. Contestants were awarded points for each successfully completed manoeuvre and a cumulative score determined their over-all placement. Parapenting is a relatively new sport throughout the world, but has become very popular in Europe, where fully-sponsored professional teams pit their skills and technologically advanced parapente canopies against each other in competitive events involving hundreds of

contestants. Although there have been scattered groups of recreational flyers in New Zealand for several years, evolution of the sport has been slow, and these championships represent the first co-ordinated event among parapenters in this part of the world.

Interest in the sport has centred on Queenstown, where access to good launch sites from the Skyline Gondola is without parallel. Mount Cook, where mountain guides exposed to the sport during trips abroad brought parapentes home with them, and Christchurch, where a restless community of parachutists saw a natural progression between their sport and flying with similar parapente equipment from the nearby Port Hills. But parapenting’s appeal has spread beyond these centres, as the strong finishes by the Wellington pilots clearly show; increasing enrolment in instruction courses has inspired yet another commercial operator to set up in Nelson. Now that New Zealanders have had a taste of parapente competition, they have larger challenges in mind. The Austrians plan to have New Zealand participate in the 1989 world parapente championships to be held in July.