The 4th FAI Asian paragliding accuracy championship was opened on June 21st 2022. The competition has pilots from 9 Asian nations: Kazakhstan, South Korea, Mongolia, United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Japan, Thailand, Uzbekistan, Iran, and  guest pilots from Serbia and the Czech Republic plus a team that flies under the FAI flag (pilots from Kyrgyzstan - a non-FAI member country). FAI is represented by Jury President Zeljko Ovuka (SRB), Jury members Jun Zhang (CNH) and Tuul Choqsomjav (MNG), and FAI Steward Riikka Vilkuna. The main flying site is located by the mountain Tau Zhetisu in Taldykorgan, eastern Kazakhstan. All are in a very positive mood and eagerly waiting for the first round of flying tomorrow because this competition took too long to organize. Originally it has been planned for 2020 but postponed to 2022 due to pandemic. 

The competition director Rustam Ababakirov looks forward to flying and comments that he is happy with the preparations. The host nation, Kazakhstan's team, which has performed good results in previous competitions, feels confident with flying at their home site. 

Riikka Vilkuna is providing us with the photos and news from the championships.

From left Almas Akhmetov, Yermek Amanbayev and and Timur Sidikov from the Kazakh team

The start marshall Rinat Mazhitov is ready for action at the main take-off

Thailand participates with a strong team as always

Competition director Rustam Ababakirov is happy over the new nations attending 

Saudi Arabia's seven pilot team first time at an FAI Category 1 competition.

 

News Page on FAI https://www.fai.org/CIVL-Taldykorgan-2022

Competition website https://civlcomps.org/event/pga-asian-2022/blog