It's time to ante-up for our US Paragliding Teams

It's that time again, and it is imperative that those who love this sport provide the support for our finest to hit the world stage.  Unlike many European athletes who get support from their National bodies, U.S. paragliding team members are spending their own dollars - unless we donate our part to support the team.

Who gets the donated funds?  Our World Team and our USA1 and USA2 X-Alps teams.  First up is the X-Alps which starts July 7th in Salzburg Austria.

Our US TEAMS are:
USA1 - Hanza Rejmanek and his support team of Luis Rosenkjer and Jesse Williams.  Honza will be competing in his 3rd X-Alps and  is the only US athlete to have ever graced the podium in a prior X-Alps.

USA2 - Stephan Haase is a friend and a talented pilot.  This is his first X-Alps.  His support team is Brad Sander and veteran supporter Dave Hanning.  Both Dave and Brad have experience in big mountains and will be an asset for Stephan.

The X-Alps coverage was riveting in 2011 and will be even better this year.

Our World Team will hit Bulgaria July 13th and consists of the ever present Josh Cohn,  Nick Greece, Eric "the Badger" Reed, and Arnie Frankenberger.  Rob Sporrer returns as Team Leader.

Please consider donating to our teams.  They compete for the purest of reasons - for the sport of it.  Prize money is not the motivator - nor is fielding teams in the world stage cheap.  Any and all help will be appreciated and you might even get an email from Uncle Tony!

You can use the button below or visit the US Team website at http://www.usparaglidingteam.org/index.html

TAX DEDUCTIBLE!

Practice Day in Piedrahita

Brad Gunniuscio has passed along this bit of video.  You can see the terrain and conditions are looking excellent for the first week of the comp.

2011 FAI PG World Championships - Piedrahita, Spain

 The 12th Paragliding World Championships begin on Tuesday the 5th of July in Piedrahita Spain.  The weather forecasts look good and you can expect some long tasks.  147 pilots from all over the world are registered.  For those who are keeping track, the newest 2-liner offerings will be well represented.  In an obvious display that Ozone is producing the most well rounded competition wing, there are 71 Ozone Mantras (9 R10s and 62 R11s) registered.  In addition there are 24 Gin Boomerang 8s - 10 Niviuk Icepeak 5s - 7 SOL Tracer TR2s -  5 Axis Mercurys - 3 UP Edge XRs and a hand full of Serial Class wings like my Gradient Avax XC3 (3).

The U.S. Worlds Team consists of Team Leaders Jeff Huey and Rob Sporrer


Our Team Pilots are Brad Gunnuscio, Josh Cohn, Jack Brown, and Melanie Pfister



Good luck guys!  Fly hard & fly safe -

The U.S. Team Blog can be viewed at http://usaparagliding.blogspot.com/

You can still donate to the team at http://www.usparaglidingteam.org/donate.html

You can keep an eye on the proceedings using the links below.  Thanks to Tom Payne for making these links readily available.

Official sites
Home page
Live tracking
Pilot list

Blogs
in English: Steve Ham (Organisation) : Team Australia : Jack Brown (USA) : Andre Rainsford (RSA) : Mads Syndergaard (DEN) / Bob Drury (XC Mag)  Brett Hazlett (CAN)
in French: Elisa Houdry (FRA) : Charles Cazaux (FRA) : Jean-Marc Caron (FRA)
in German: German Team : Swiss Team
in Spanish: Raul Penso (VEN)