Africa’s longest-running paragliding competition, the Barberton Paragliding Open, is underway at the Makhonjwa Mountains in Mpumalanga, transforming the area into a colorful spectacle.
Ninety pilots from the country and few from Reunion Island, France and England are taking part in the week-long event.
The competition takes place annually in winter.
Organizer and Technical Director, Mias de Klerk says she believes that the sport has a lot of potential to empower people
“This is a cross-country paragliding competition and a cross-country paragliding competition is basically a race through the air. So, every morning we set a task for the day based on the weather conditions. We love meeting each other here every year, and it is an enormous economic injection into the community to the time that it is here. We believe that the sport has a lot of potential to empower people and help them achieve things that they might not believe is possible. South Africa has become a popular tourist destination. So, we attract people from all over the world because we’ve got such fantastic weather,” says de Klerk.
Participant, Andre Rainsford, a seasoned campaigner with over 27 years of paragliding experience, says the competition plays a crucial role in growing the sport in Africa, which is currently dominated by European countries.
“There are not very many African nations; certainly no SADC nations that go to World Championships. They are pretty dominated by European countries. So, it has always been a privilege and an honor to go and represent, not just South Africa, but you kind of feel like you are representing the continent because there’s a lack of pilots on the continent,” he says.
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