French Flying and Skiing Championship 2017

The first French Flying and Skiing Championship was held in Courchevel.

On 10, 11 and 12 March, the spectacle was to be admired between sky and earth. The organisers from the club “Courchevel Sports Outdoor Free Flight” were delighted with perfect flying conditions and weather during the 3 days of competition, despite a light cloud veil on the Sunday. This big free flight weekend began with the landing accuracy event. The objective: to reach a target placed on the landing area of the Courchevel 1850 slalom stadium. Paraglider pilots had to compete in skill to hit the bullseye! All day from 10 am to 4 pm, flights followed one after another from the Loze take-off, and 5 rounds could be validated, of which the best 4 were counted for each pilot. Eliot Nochez, 2015 paragliding aerobatics World Cup winner, was the most impressive with a total of only 27 centimetres from the centre of the target over 4 rounds. Sam Sperber, who came specially from Guadeloupe, finished second with 113 cm ahead of Pascal Piazalunga , a paragliding instructor in Courchevel (180 cm).

Among the women, Kti Devos was the most accurate with 395 cm, followed byAnne-Sophie Lemesle (1,497 cm) and Françoise Lerique (2,507 cm).

This first day ended in a flourish with aerobatic demonstrations by Eliot Nochez and Gilles Joyeau , who jumped by paraglider from a SAF helicopter at an altitude of 1,000 metres above the resort. At the same time, the 6 best pilots of the day, qualified for the 2017 landing accuracy World Championships, came down to land on the Courchevel snow front, with mayor Philippe Mugnier in a tandem flown by Hervé Franchino. Once the show was over, the Croisette hall hosted a screening of the film ‘Bob je quitte le navire’, featuring many paragliding aerobatics sequences, including those of Thibault Cheval, present for the occasion, who was the first man in the world to have walked a “highline” between two paragliders.

1st French Flying and Skiing Championship

11 and 12 March were reserved for the 1st French Flying and Skiing Championship. Jean-Claude Benintende, president of the French Free Flight Federation and member of the organising club, was keen to hold this first French championship in Courchevel. “Fly and ski began in 1992 in Courchevel with the paragliding Internationals organised by Jean-François Ravaute, then president of the Courchevel Paragliding Club. I took over the torch from 2003 to 2013, organising the Fly & Ski challenge. Today I am happy that Courchevel can host the first French Flying and Skiing Championship.”

This event consists of a series of precision exercises during the flight, such as touching the snow with the skis at clearly marked points on the course and taking off again without letting the canopy drop to the ground (the Touch and Go), touching slalom poles in flight, aiming at a target with an object carried on board, sliding on the snow with the canopy overhead for several metres before taking off again, making the biggest flare on landing…

For the championship, the flying zone was located on the “M” slope down to the foot of the Marquetty slope. The pilots had 12 tasks to complete over the whole course and 6 rounds were validated during the weekend.

Eliot Nochez and Kti Devos win the 2017 French Flying and Skiing champion titles

With 5,050 points, Eliot Nochez took the title ahead of Sam Sperber (4,840 points) and Alain Finet (4,020 points). Among the women, Kti Devos was crowned with 4,360 points ahead of Anne Bosvieux (3,880 points) and Sarah Castellarnaud (2,700 points).

Note the fine performance of Ireland’s Sean Potts , who took second place overall in the Open category with 4,840 points. In the two-seaters, Eliot Nochez again proved unbeatable with 3,840 points ahead of Etienne Coupez and Tam Luutho tied with 1,870 points.