Paragliding, France dominates. A bronze for the Azzurri

French unleashed

A one-sided paragliding free flight championship to France closed in Nis, Serbia, after two weeks of competition.

French pilots and female pilots left the rest of Europe with only crumbs and in some cases not even that. Of the six tasks contested in ten days over distances between 72 and 101 kilometers, the French national team won no less than five; the remaining four were cancelled due to adverse weather.

The overwhelming power of the transalpine cousins exuded in the individual with as many as six pilots in the first seven places, the only exception being our Denis Soverini, a good sixth and the best of the Italians in the race. So Luc Armant took the gold medal, Maxime Pinot the silver and Honorin Hamard the bronze.

All in the land of Asterix, too, were the medals awarded in the newly created Junior mixed women’s and men’s rankings. To be precise: first Loïs Goutagny, second Simon Mettetal and third Meryl Delferriere.

In the women’s, the only two French women in the race, Meryl Delferriere and Constance Mettetal, finished first and second, respectively, ahead of Austria’s Elisabeth Egger.

The official Italian team, led by coach Alberto Castagna of Cologno Monzese, grabbed the team bronze medal at the last flight behind the Czech Republic and, of course, France, the new European champions. They included Silvia Buzzi Ferraris from Milan, Cristian Biasi from Rovereto (Trento), Marco Busetta from Catania, 2019 world champion Joachim Oberhauser from Termeno (Bolzano), and Denis Soverini from Gemona, Friuli. Other Italians competing were Alberto Vitale and Paolo Facchini from Bologna, Michele Boschi and Marco Valentini from Parma, and Marco Littamé from Turin.

There were 130 drivers from 30 nations at the Serbian event. Of past editions, Italy had won those in 2004 and 2010 and missed the title by a whisker in 2018.