Solang Valley In Manali Is Going To Hold It’s First-Ever Paragliding Competition

Tag : paragliding, Manali, Himachal Pradesh

Yes! A paragliding competition! And that too at the magnificent valleys of Manali!

One can witness the first ever paragliding competition in Solang valley near Manali, Himachal Pradesh.  This will occur on the 1st November and the main purpose of this competition is to promote tourism. When NGT ordered to ban all commercial activities in Solang, paragliding remained completely shut for one year. Before the ban, Solang would attract a large number of tourists. But now the activity has resumed, and to promote this activity, the local youth have announced to organize Independence Paragliding Competition.

New Zealand and French pilots developed paragliding site in Solang in the 1980s. In 1989, it was adopted by local resident Roshan Thakur who taught the sport to hundreds of locals and this is how Solang became the paragliding hub of the country. Being the first civilian to avail the license to fly a paraglider, Thakur today runs the only Paragliding School of the state where both civilians and army personnel learn.väskor kopia

The organizer of the competition and also an Olympian, Hira Lal said, "Government in other states are promoting paragliding and the Himachal government is also promoting it in some other areas while they are ignoring Manali. Nobody ever bothered to organize an international, national or even state-level competition. That is why we are trying to do it by ourselves.”

The competition will be in solo and tandem categories where the participants will have to show their landing skills by performing smooth landing close to a marked circle. Being an open championship, pilots of any country can participant in the competition. The winners of each category will be benefited with the monetary prize of 2 lakh rupees.

"It is strange that we are doing paragliding here for over 25 years and still Manali did not witness any competitions. This is just the beginning. We have to work a lot and nothing can be done without the active participation of government," said the advisor of the competition, Roshan Thakur.

Source:  Times of India.

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