Weight Categories

Discipline

Paragliding XC

What do we want ?

Discussion about creating weight categories, to avoid people having over-ballast. Maybe 3 is enough?

How do we achieve that ?

Creating some weight categories and pushing it as a standard for every comp, ranking, etc.. We could still have an open category, but also classification by weights.

*addition:
Maybe this is for a future, if the sport gets bigger, where Events could hold more people. f.e. 50-80 participants per weight, flying separately (different task, time, or day), maybe a side effect is that you reduce the problem of over-populated starts at times and collisions. I agree that might be not a topic for today, but something that could happen if we really grow.

Issue category :

Institutional issue

Comments

By Mateusz Gajczewski on Fri, 17 Oct 2025 - 21:47

I think your proposal refers to the FAI Sporting Code, Section 7A 8.5.4 - Ballast:
“Pilots must comply with the weight limitations set by the glider airworthiness standards. Weight can be measured at take-off or landing at the request of the organisers. Pilots may carry jettisonable ballast only in the form of fine sand or water. A pilot must avoid dropping ballast at any time or in a manner likely to affect other competing gliders or third parties.”

In my opinion, this rule is practically obsolete - neither enforced by organizers nor respected by pilots. In practice, it serves as a general allowance for using lead plates, weighted vests, and similar solutions.

That said, pilots shouldn’t be penalized for being small, light, or simply in good physical shape - and heavier pilots shouldn’t be penalized either. You can create as many categories as you like, but will that really encourage pilots to reduce excessive ballast, knowing it might hurt their performance and chances in the overall ranking?

I’m definitely in favor of addressing the ballast issue in some way, and I’m curious to see real-world testing of potential equalizers.

For genuinely lightweight pilots, an additional subcategory could make sense.
I’m not against creating sub-rankings, as long as there are enough competitors to make them meaningful. It doesn’t hurt anyone - but let’s be honest, if you weigh 50 kg and need 20 kg of ballast to fly an Enzo, it’s neither safe nor comfortable. Because of that, I’d rather see top-level events for pilots under 100 kg or for women, perhaps with D gliders, where they could compete under equal-ish conditions and wouldn’t feel pressured to over-ballast just to keep up with the heaviest pilots.

By IvanHaas on Sun, 19 Oct 2025 - 13:04

Most pilots don’t want to be the 70kg world champion, but want to be the world champion overall. Thus, equalizers would be a better solution than weight categories.

By Olmo León on Tue, 21 Oct 2025 - 08:46

Every sport that I know where weight makes a diffrence have categories, and I think is fair. You can be World Champion <80, <90..or whatever... and you compete with your equals.
Equalizers might be a solution, do not have all the feedback.. but people with bigger size gliders say the get a disadvantage on turning, making then smaller sizes the ones with the advantage.

By Ondřej Pohořelský on Tue, 21 Oct 2025 - 09:21

From my experience, flying M Enzo for two years and then ballasting up to L for two years, it really depends on the task and weather conditions.
When you have wide and strong thermals, the L is a better glider. It is calmer and feels floatier. But when you get into not so good conditions, where thermals are narrow, the M has an advantage as the glider turns much nicer and tighter. So most of the comps I've flown in the Alps favored the M size. On L I often feel like I have to really persuade the glider into the turn, almost doing a negative turn, and the glider is still very numbly not turning. On the M it just simply goes after your hand.

Designer

By Luc Armant on Tue, 21 Oct 2025 - 09:38

With Size Equalizers, you would not have to fly the L with ballast anymore.

By Ondřej Pohořelský on Tue, 21 Oct 2025 - 10:17

I'm ballasting up, because I'm on the edge of the weight range of M, having 113kg with lightly loaded backpack. When I would carry more stuff and gain some weight through the season as I usually do, I could be over the limit by 2-3kg, so I chose to take the ballast and fly L instead, where I have more room to adjust when necessary

Designer

By Luc Armant on Thu, 23 Oct 2025 - 13:23

Yes of course, ballasting is a good way to adjust if requires between two sizes. However also note that in a future of competition without size advantages, the equipement will be naturally much lighter, so you would not be on the edge of the L anymore. Maybe on the edge of the M to S !

Designer

By Luc Armant on Tue, 21 Oct 2025 - 09:44

The biggest drawback of this solution is to dilute the tittles. If there are too much medals, the value of medals is degraded. When we have a big sport, like Judo or Boxe, it does not matter, but when if you divide our tiny sport, there is not much left remaining !
Few years ago, I did ask to female pilots and the vast majority was against replacing female medals by weight medals.
So in effect, you'd need to have at least two medals per weight category. And that's if we don't have the Junior category.

The other thing is that if you put only 3 categories, then pilots are ballasting up to the top of each one, so you have not really solved the ballasting issue !

By Olmo León on Tue, 21 Oct 2025 - 16:17

Yes, is true that current competitions don't have enough participants to apply something like this giving value to all categories.
Maybe this is for a future, if the sport gets bigger, where Events could hold more people. f.e. 50-80 participants per weight, flying separately (different task, time, or day), maybe a side effect is that you reduce the problem of over-populated starts at times and collisions. I agree that might be not a topic for today, but something that could happen if we really grow.

By christiaandurrant on Wed, 22 Oct 2025 - 12:08

I think this proposal will be addressed by the equalizer vs MRT debate however related matter - how hard is it for the takeoff marshall to check your weight vs number as you enter into the takeoff gate? no extra time/delay - should be mandatory check.

Organiser

By Richard Meek on Wed, 22 Oct 2025 - 15:35

Let's gather some data; does this platform support complex polls ?

Initial thoughts are we ask for; naked weight, all-up weight (pilot and equipment) and ballast ? Ballast being weight carried for the purpose of performance.

By Olmo León on Wed, 22 Oct 2025 - 16:06

I think we always refer to the wing max-weight homologated.

CIVL Delegate

By thomasmilko on Wed, 22 Oct 2025 - 15:51

We have debated for many months on the equalizers, we should at least tive an opportunity for real life testing, from what I heard, weather was not helping in the competitions it was supposed to be tested. Ozone did put an effort on it, testing, calculating, etc…
Real world testing could help a lot !

By Malin Lobb on Fri, 24 Oct 2025 - 22:20

I think there is a lot of statements here that might not be true, and would like some statistics to back it up. I don’t think having weight categories waters down your achievements, if you watch boxing and someone wins a title, you know he is the best in the world in his weight class. Comps with 120 pilots in would easily have enough pilots to make each weight class competitive, you might have to group the weight class at either ends (XXS in to XS and XXL in to XL) for a slightly bigger pool of pilots, but I think this is a far simpler solution than equaliser. It would give the top pilots a new challenge of winning different weight classes and becoming world champion at different weights over the years.

By Markos Siotos on Sat, 25 Oct 2025 - 00:23

I Agree with IvanHaas...

I had the same idea, expressed in a different way.

"Go tell Pinot that he will be the "Feather Category" champion, from now on in his life.

And, in the end of day, 'who are you' to force to other people how much ballast, risk, and challenge they are going to take in their life?

People, I think we are loosing it in here... In our attempt to go "safer", as a reaction to what has recently happened, we are messing with 'personal freedom' and this is not a good path to follow...

By Olmo León on Sat, 25 Oct 2025 - 07:59

It has been proven in the past that people are willing to do unsafe things on competitions, there must be "some" limits.
But maybe it is not needed to force a max ballast allowed, because if we had weight categories, it could come naturally that people uses their proper size (or one above), but not so crazy as it is now.

By Malin Lobb on Sat, 25 Oct 2025 - 08:29

If there were no ballast restrictions, you would be forcing anyone to do anything, they could fly in whatever weight category they wanted. But the people that didn’t want to fly with ballast wouldn’t have to.

By Olmo León on Sat, 25 Oct 2025 - 08:24

Here are current most common CCC gliders ranges:
Ozone / Enzo 3
XXS 80 - 90
XS 85 - 95
S 85 - 100
MS 90 - 105
M 100 - 115
ML 110 - 125
L 120 - 135
Niviuk / Icepeak X-One
20 80 - 95
22 90 - 105
24 98 - 112
25 108 - 120
26 118 - 133
Gin Gliders / Boomerang 12
XS 80 - 95
S 95 - 105
M 100 - 112
ML 105 - 117
L 110 - 127
XL 120 - 137

With current situation, categories suggestion:
<85 (no CCC wing exists, other classes)
<95 (Enzo XXS&XS, Xone 20, Boomerang XS)
<105 (Enzo S&MS, Xone 22, Boomerang S)
<117 (Enzo M, Xone 24, Boomerang M&ML)
Nolimit (Enzo ML&L, Xone 25&26, Boomerang L&XL) * could be splitted (<127 & nolimit) but maybe ballast is not a problem for bigger pilots

By Malin Lobb on Sat, 25 Oct 2025 - 08:34

I would add a sub 80 category as well, remember a lot of girls are 50-60kg body weight so 80kg could still be 20kg above.

By Olmo León on Sat, 25 Oct 2025 - 08:36

I would too, but with current wings, it doesn't exist the option, at least with CCC.. other classes yes, agree

PWCA Board

CIVL Delegate

By eduardosanchezgranel on Sun, 26 Oct 2025 - 16:30

Those who defend weight categories in FAI-1 events (because they already exist in FAI-2 events) should clearly state how would these FAI-1 events be structured in terms of:
☆ quantity of pilots
☆ quotas for all the categories (women + diff. weight cat)
☆ will there be additional country/team selection rules? (1+1+1+1?)
☆ how many countries to participate
☆ how will country scores work?

And then think how NACs would deal with all these limitations

By Olmo León on Mon, 27 Oct 2025 - 11:32

Agree, but this is a large thing, needs to be discussed on a working group if we want to push it forward.

By Reza on Wed, 29 Oct 2025 - 16:55

At the moment, the titles are unfair and encourage unnecessary risk-taking.
Weight classes do not “dilute the titles” — they make them fair and our sport safer.

The days when only 40 pilots showed up for a competition are long gone. In the venues and events we are discussing, we now have a large and diverse community. Our elected organizational bodies have a duty to adapt and evolve to represent and protect all pilots — not just those in a specific weight range.

Many pilots have already stopped competing because they either cannot or simply do not want to carry large amounts of ballast in order to fly an Mor L size Enzo — and to accept all the associated risks that come with it.

Concerns about organization and logistics are valid, but they are certainly easier to solve transparently and correctly than the current system with equalizers or MRT adjustments, which are complex, opaque, and leave too many variables unresolved.

How do “equalizers” help an XS Enzo pilot who faces a proven 25% disadvantage in turbulence (as supported by studies)? You simply cannot calculate or compensate for such differences. Flying an L or M-size Enzo compared to an XS or XXS is fundamentally and unavoidably unfair — and no “noodles” or MRT formula can fix that.

Now imagine if we could simply define clear weight classes and let pilots fly the equipment and weight of their choice.
We would preserve the freedom of choice, respect individual experience, and still benefit from all the investment and evolution we’ve made in scoring and competition systems.

No one would be forced to change their glider, ballast setup, or flying style.

This approach would make competitions fairer, safer, and more inclusive, without undoing years of progress in technology and scoring.