The wonderfully named ‘Flying Rags for Glory: the A-Z of competition paragliding’ hit the shops at the beginning of the month and is the current best selling item at XCShop.com. Mads’ Syndergaard’s exhaustive work is a first of its kind. Normally competitions have been relegated to a sub-section of general flying books, when in truth, [...]

Great racing conditions, good organisation, fantastic Greek food, folk music and dances and breathtaking scenery made for an ideal week in West Greece at the end of August for the pre- world cup.

Pal Takats has invented a new paragliding acro manoeuvre, the Esfera, which means sphere in Spanish.

Acro grandmaster Raul Rodriguez explains how to learn wingovers – and how to get good at them.

France’s Yann Martail is the 2010 Paragliding World Cup Superfinal champion. He won the two-week competition flying an Ozone R10.2 – the paraglider that has dominated the competition circuit all season.

UP’s Mads Syndergaard heads off to XC Turkey, to try to win the 5,000 Euros prizemoney that has been promised to the first paraglider pilot to fly 300 km in the region. He reports back for xcmag.com.

Some of the Cross Country team are planning a post-St Hilaire treat: to climb Mont Blanc, the biggest mountain in Western Europe (4,810m), and fly off it. Charlie King is preparing for the off.

VOTE NOW! We’ve a had a great response to our Facebook paragliding and hang gliding short film competition – thanks to everyone who entered. The winner will be the one who gets the most votes in this poll.

Mal Grace reports on the final roud of the British Paragliding Cup that was held in Snowdonia over the weekend of 13 – 15 August. Martin Sandwith won the round, but overall winner of the 2010 BPCup was Richard Butterworth. [More...]

Mal Grace reports on the South East Wales round of the British Paragliding Cup (30 July – 1 August), which was not blessed with ideal weather conditions. Malcolm Davis made the best of the tricky conditions to win the round.

Mal Grace reports on round three of the BPCup, which was held at Long Mynd in Shropshire.

Thermalling well is all about mental mapping, staying alert to new information and exploration within the thermal. And lots of flying is the only way to collect the pieces of this jigsaw puzzle, writes Bob Drury

Free download to the best paragliding and hang gliding sites in the world.   Cross Country magazine’s Global Travel Guide for hang gliding and paragliding is now available online as a free pdf download – perfect for the iPad, your laptop or printing off. Published in April 2010 the print edition of the guide was [...]

David Humphrey samples Turkey’s new big distance arena ahead of the XC Turkey event in September 2010

Forget blue skies and 4,000 m cloudbases, the Red Bull X-Alps is about bleeding feet, blisters, buckled knees and rain. Are you tough enough? Ed Ewing spoke to some of the athletes to find out what it takes to keep running…

The latest issue of Cross Country is out now in both paper and digital formats. Read on for editor Ed Ewing’s taster of what’s brewing inside.

Six of the biggest brands in the sport are joining us to create the best prize draw we’ve ever run!

Gradient’s Madeiran adventures: a movie by Felix Woelk

Gradient have been filming their latest paragliders, and the videos presented here are of their Avax XC3 serial class racer and the intermediate Golden3.

Top paragliding film, Gravity Never Sleeps, has been shortlisted for an award at FIFAD (the International Alpine Film Festival) in Les Diablerets from 7 – 14 August 2010.