America's Austin Cox wins overall pre-World Cup paragliding tourney

Tribune News Service

Dharamsala, November 2

Chairman of Himachal Pradesh Tourism Development Corporation (HPTDC) RS Bali today presided over the concluding ceremony of the pre-World Cup paragliding championship, was organised at Bir Billing from October 27 to November 2.

While addressing the event, Bali said the state government was planning to equip Bir Billing with facilities of international standard for the paragliding adventure sport. The state government has already sanctioned an amount of Rs 50 lakh for developing facilities for national and international-level paragliding pilots. The Tourism Department had released Rs 25 lakh for the pre-World Cup event, he said.

As many as 93 participants from 18 countries, including France, the USA, Switzerland, Vietnam, India, Finland, England, Germany, Australia, Italy, Norway, Kazakhstan, Israel, Poland, South Africa, Slovenia, Czech Republic and Ireland participated in the championship. There were 13 participants from the Indian Army, including 8 women.

In the junior category, Ashwani Thakur of India stood first while Sushant Thakur stood second and Noah Kanner of Switzerland bagged the third position. In the sports category, Owen Schumacher bagged the first position, Subir Sidhu stood second and Christopher Moody third.

In the senior category, Switzerland’s Michael Sewri won the first place, Noah Kinnar stood second and Veera Shivari bagged the third position. In the team category, Northwest Paragliding team stood first, The First Frog team won the second place while Akash Adventure team bagged the third place.

In the Indian category, Ashwani Thakur stood first, Yash Paul stood second and Ranjit Singh third. In the women’s category, America’s Jenny Onal bagged the first place, Switzerland’s Veer Shevari stood second and Isabelle Messenger third.

Overall, America’s Austin Cox stood first, America’s Owen Shoe Menker stood second and France’s Cotton Lamy bagged the third position.

Along with trophies, the overall winner was awarded Rs 1.5 lakh, the runner-up Rs 1 lakh and the second runner-up Rs 75,000. In the Indian and women’s categories, besides trophies, the winner was awarded Rs 70,000, the runner-up Rs 50,000 and the second runner-up was given Rs 30,000.

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