The 2018 Asian Games was one of its kind as it was first time that this multi-sports extravaganza was split between two locations: the Indonesian capital, Jakarta and the South Sumatran capital, Palembang.
In a game of many ‘firsts’, the headlines was snatched by Paragliding, which made it’s debut in Asiad for the first time since 1951. For the first time ever, the paragliding pilots were among the thousands of athletes competing, as air sports took place alongside more than 40 other genres of sports involved in this action-packed, pan-Asian extravaganza.
Both men’s and women’s individual and team events were staged in accuracy competitions, apart from the battle of supremacy in the cross-country contest. Thus 6 gold medals were up for grabs in this particular sport.
Accuracy event in paragliding is a test of precision in landing, which is one of the most popular form of the game. The landing area is divided into concentric circles with the dead centre or the bull’s eye being only two centimetres in diameter. Circles are marked out at 0.5 meters, 2.5 meters and five meters around the landing. There is an electronic pressure sensitive landing pad which registers the first point of contact with the competitor’s foot as it makes contact. Pilots are scored on the distance in centimetres between their landing point and the bull’s eye or the dead centre. Unlike other sports, here the pilots aim to attain the lowest score, trying to land as close as possible to the dead centre. A pilot is marked zero, the perfect score, when he lands on the dead centre. In this edition of the Asian Games, each contestant undertook 12 rounds, which decided the winners in the individual category. In the men’s team events, aggregate scores of five of the participants from the same country were considered for deciding winners; while in the women’s team event, scores of any three contestants from the same country were considered.
Cross country is the most popular paragliding event. This event will span over five days and every day, a competitor will have to a race on a course, with the exact route being decided before the commencement of the race by the race director. In paragliding, a route is called a task and the basic aim of the contest is to complete the task and finish at the goal (finish line) in the fastest possible time. In the race to goal event, all the competitors start at the same time and the pilot who crosses the finish line in the fastest time gains most points. In elapsed time speed races, the competitors do not start together but their timings from the start to the finish are considered. All paragliders are connected to GPS and their flights are tracked to judge whether they have completed the entire task. Both events will be held at the Gunung Mas Puncak amusement park in Bogor in West Java, close to Jakarta.
Competition will consisted of Six (6) events :
Accuracy (2)men’s events
Accuracy (2) women’s events
Cross Country (1) men’s event
Cross Country (1) women’s event.
Flying site : Gunung Mas, Puncak, West Java,Indonesia
Take Off Altitude: 1250 meter ASL.
Participating Nations :
Winners :
Men’s Individual Accuracy :
Men’s Team Accuracy :
Men’s Team Cross- country :
Women’s Individual Accuracy :
Women’s Team Accuracy :
Women’s Team Cross- country :
