Indian glider creates history in Himalayan pre-World Cup

Dharamshala, Oct 19 (UNI) For the first time in the history of any international paragliding event, an Indian paraglider, Ajay Sharma created history at Bir-Billing in the Himalayan Paragliding Pre-World Cup-2008 by winning a task in overall category.

Sharma hailing from Kullu district of Himachal Pradesh secured the first position in the 57.4 km task today in the overall category to secure 996 points. He is now lying in the fourth position in the mens overall category with an aggregate of 1789 points.

In the second day's task today Andreas Malecki of Germany, Torsten Siegel also of Germany, Sergey Latyshev of Russia and Ajay Sharma secured 949, 948, 953 and 996 points respectively.

Malecki with a total of 1865 points continues to maintain a two point lead over countryman Siegel in the mens overall category.

Sergey Latyshev with 1837 points is lying at the third position followed after the completiong of two tasks.

In the Indian category, Ajay Sharma is at th top and he is followed by Debu Choudhury (1639 points) and Gurpreet Dhindsa with 1631 points.

In the team category, Russia with 5251 points was leading followed by the 50-50 team, comprising of gliders from Britain and Germany (5163 points). The TB&SD team, comprising of gliders from Germany and India were third with 5098 points.

In the womens category, Russian paragliders maintained the top three positions. Svetlana Piskareva (1427 points) was leading after two tasks followed by Elena Dmitrievskaya (1326 points) and Aleksandra Cherepanova (951 points).

Task number 3 of 73.6 km was given by the championship technical committee and 90 minutes window was opened at 1145 hours today and task deadline for landing at Bir was 1730 hours. The route of the task is Billing-Jogindernagar-Palampur and back, with the landing at Bir.

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