Joachim Oberhauser from South Tyrol (ITA) is new FAI Paragliding World Champion!
The 43 year old came out on top after 10 days of intense competition flying in the Overall Category (=Women+Men). He finished ahead of 149 other pilots from 48 different countries to win the title of FAI Paragliding World Champion and a prestigious gold medal of the World Air Sports Federation FAI. Gleb Sukhotskiy (RUS) took the 2nd place. Honorin Hamard (FRA) came in 3rd.
The 21 year old Meryl Delferriere from France won gold in the Women’s category and is the new FAI Women’s Paragliding World Champion.
On place 2 in the women’s competition came Yael Margelisch (SUI/Verbier). And Australia’s Kari Ellis completed the podium on rank 3. A total of 21 women took part.
The nations ranking was a close competition: Although France pulled out all the stops on the final day and managed to clinch the day-win as a team, it wasn’t enough to pull ahead of the Italians. By the end of the competition, France and Italy had both scored 18,821 points over the two weeks of competition – an incredibly tight finish. Japan was third and wins bronze; there is no second-place silver medal awarded. In paragliding competition each team is made up of four pilots, with the top two pilots in each team contributing to the team score each day.
The event was hold in the highest town in the Balkans, Krushevo (MKD) from August 5 – 18, 2019.

Results

OVERALL
1st Joachim Oberhauser (ITA)
2nd Gleb Sukhotskiy (RUS)
3rd Honorin Hamard (FRA)

WOMENS
1st Meryl Delferriere (FRA)
2nd Yael Margelisch (SUI)
3rd Kari Ellis (AUS)

TEAMS
1st France
1st Italy
3rd Japan