SRS – BGD edition Piedrahita, Spain, 22-29 August 2026

The BGD Edition of the SRS was held in Piedrahita, Spain in the last week of August 2026. BGD fielded two teams, dubbed the Golden Oldies (40+plus) and the Young Guns. They were flying a mixture of CURE 3s and TIGRAs.

Abel Varga, flying the TIGRA, won two out of the three tasks. Tyr missed out on goal in Task 3 by a whisker, having pushed out alone to find the route. His bold style stood to gain a lot of lead-out points, but it wasn't to be. He landed just short and had to watch others fly over his head. That’s paragliding competitions!

The SRS reported:

Task 1 was a tricky 58 km task. A 20 km leg into a westerly wind made for extremely hard going. The thermals, weak at lower levels, became strong and turbulent at altitude. The arrival of a veil of cloud caused a change in pace that put many pilots on the ground. Having bagged the first turn point, the rest of the flight consisted of small thermals and being pushed by a tailwind. As conditions deteriorated, the last pilots in the air were forced to land less than 10 km from the goal.

Next stop, two stunning tasks to Avila giving the opportunity to explore the whole Pena Negra ridge.

Task 2 was 76km and task 3, 108km – both classic Piedrahita.
The pilots flew up and down the ridge to the corrals and towards El Barco, before the real action began. There were lots of decisions to be made. Was the valley working sufficiently to venture out into the flats and straight-line it, or stay on the ridge with its reliable thermals before tackling the Villatoro pass, the gateway to the Avila flatlands? The pass showed its teeth to some pilots, but most were waved through to be faced once again with the choice: mountains or flats? Most chose the mountains, but, unsurprisingly, the fastest route was straight down the middle of the plain with its long glides and booming thermals.

On the last day, the penultimate leg provided a sting in the tail, and the final leg into goal proved treacherous, with its headwind and weak end-of-day thermals putting many of the leaders on the ground.

Having won the first task, Carlos Lopes maintained his lead throughout the competition and despite coming into goal behind the leaders in task 3, kept his top spot on the podium. However, the best moment in the whole competition for Carlos was yet to come - he won a BGD Cure 3 in the prize draw!

In the ladies ranking, Martina Centa and Adel Honti battled it out for the whole week, with Martina winning two tasks and flying away with the ladies’ trophy.

With 27 teams, the team competition was always going to be a tough one to crack. Well done to BGD under 30s taking third place.

The full scores are on srs.live.

The unflyable days were put to very good use with a well-received masterclass about glider trimming given by Brett Janaway. This inspired two days of intense glider trimming in HQ, with the more experienced pilots giving the newbies a helping hand, as is always the spirit at the SRS. There was also a talk about 2027 venues and the new World Sports Final (WSF) which will be held in July 2027, in Gemona, Italy.

Bruce, Tyr and Cesar Arevalo also gave a very informative lecture about glider design, acro and testing.

RESULTS

OVERALL
1. Carlos Lopes
2. Deonir Spancerski
3. Tomas Hallenberg

FEMALE
1. Martina Centa
2. Adel Honti
3. Magdalena Janaway

LIGHTWEIGHT
1. Magdalena Janaway
2. Rasa Grigoraitiene
3. Ni Mo

MIDWEIGHT
1. Tomas Hallenberg
2. Mike ravelli
3. Bruce Goldsmith

TEAMS
1. Gin 2
2. Airtribune
3. BGD

Photos: SRS