Nepal Clinches Second Position in Paragliding Championship

Pokhara: Nepal clinched the second position in the team event of the Paragliding World Cup Asian Tour and the 19th edition of Nepal Open Paragliding Championship.

The Nepali team came out second in the ‘task’ of the 42.7 kilometers cross-country event under the World Cup qualification competition held here on Thursday.

The Championship had kicked off on February 23. Championship director Bimal Adhikari said the competition was affected for three days before this due to bad weather.

Korea is leading in the team event. It is in the first berth with 20 points while Nepal stands in the second position with 17 points. Nepal’s other team, The Team Everest, took third place with 13 points.

In the male singles event, Korean Chiyong Ha stood first with 750 points, Jangmen Choi took the second position with 734 points and Munshio Lim came out third with 726 points.

Nepal’s Yukesh Gurung came out fourth with 719 points. Similarly, towards the women’s singles event, American Galen Kirkpatrick stood first with 206 points, Korean Yana Lee came out second with 156 points and Swiss national Susan Stofar and Indian Reenul Pasankar took the third and fourth position with 68 and 52 points respectively.

The competitors had taken off from Sarangkot and landed at Khapaudi after flying to various places of Pokhara. Ninety-two paragliding pilots from 20 countries are competing in the World Cup Qualifiers.

Five to eight competitors would be selected for the Paragliding World Cup Super Finals from this championship. The competitors, selected from the Asian Tour which has been set for Indonesia and China along with Nepal this year based on point and ranking, will get an entry to the Paragliding World Cup Super Final to be held in 2021 (RSS).