Professionalisation XC and H&F

Yes ! On this topic, the Superfinal format which was intended to bring a planetary event to showcase has failed. The technology is there to do better in terms of marketing. Star races around a good TO somewhere in the Alps coupled with live broadcast and interviews is no utopia. Twitch channel with enhanced live report from the gaggle could be arranged.

I fully agree with this point. A significant part of the evolution of any sport is closely linked to its professionalization. To achieve this, it is essential to establish a strong and coherent communication and promotion structure.
Such an initiative should ideally originate from the FAI and provide unified support across all disciplines — much like the FIA does for motorsports. With this foundation, the sport could attract greater visibility, larger audiences, and consequently, major sponsors. This, in turn, would enable sustainable growth, increased budgets for competitions, and improvements in safety standards.
This aspect is particularly relevant in developing countries, where safety equipment and infrastructure are often difficult to access and prohibitively expensive. It is therefore encouraging to see that this idea is being taken seriously, as it represents a key step toward the responsible and professional development of our sport.

Hi Serge! Before thinking of athlete professionalisation (which I will not discuss in spite of it being the theme here), I would rather first put a lot of efforts to professionalize event organizations. Many of them already are. But profesionnalisation is not only about the money, in my eyes, it is also about behavior or attitude, knowledge, procedures, respect of requirements...

Hello All.

@Christian, since you mentioned the Olympics. FAI, through AFA (Air Sports Federation of Asia), has been capitalising on the Asian Nations in lobbying for Air Sports, specifically Paragliding and Drone Racing for the Olympics through the Olympic Council of Asia (OCA) to "Pilot" the sport in various Asian Olympic Events such as Asian Games, SEA Games and Asian Beach Games. The creation of AFA was in Hong Kong early 2017, if I am not mistaken, then there was a gathering between FAI Officials and some Asian NAC in China in late 2017. I was there. The year 2018 Paragliding (XC and Accuracy) was then included in the 2018 Asian Games in Indonesia as a demonstration sport. But not all Asain nations send delegations, including my country, the Philippines.

But multiple issues arose at that event, issues such as SAFETY, Weather and the organising of the event itself. After the 2018 Asian Games, no more paragliding. But for the upcoming 33rd SEAGames this December, as Thailand is the host nation, Paragliding is included as a demonstration sport again, but this time only Accuracy.

@Julien, sorry for the delay in What Went wrong about the 2018 Asian Games paragliding events.

Correction, the 2018 Asian Games paragliding is a full medal sport