Somewhere between 4th and 5th grade of primary school I watched the movie Top Gun too many times, like most of the pilots from my generation. Soon after that, at the age of 13, I started lessons for sailplanes but soon dropped out. I returned to flying in 1999, when an in-law took me through paragliding course. Flying was at that time mostly limited to “jumping” of the hills and maybe turn a thermal every once in a while. As I wanted to gain more knowledge of flying I returned and successfully completed sailplane course in 2002 and for a while put paragliding on a hold.
I started racing sailplanes in 2007 and next year I won two international competitions. Later I also had some good results on international competitions which opened the door for me to join the national team in 2010. In the year 2012 I lost my rented sailplane in an aircraft accident and it took a whole year to sort it out with insurance company. As I switched clubs at the same time, I didn’t have access to their sailplanes, which basically meant that I was grounded. That lead me to return to paragliding where I passed my paragliding course (again) in the year 2013.
My paragliding career was quite fast from then on and a bit unusual. Soon I started racing, first on Winter cup and later on other competitions. Nevada was soon replaced by Carrera with which we got along quite well and successfully raced together. After two seasons, in the start of 2016, Carrera was replaced by Enzo 2 and from then on I try to “fight with the big boys”. I’m still in a phase of learning and am very happy to get some knowledge and skills from faster and more experienced guys on the team.
Other sports: Motocross/enduro, fitness, mountain biking
Favourite moments: Probably more of them. First one was when I meet with the majority of our “strong ones” in Adrenalin league, just after I upgraded to Enzo 2 and I managed to reach a daily win on my home grounds in Kobarid. The last one is from PWC Sopot 2018, where my rucksack fell of the chair lift and the organizers didn’t manage to deliver it to the start before the race begun. Rok Dolinšek then borrowed me his full equipment and I had maybe 30 minutes to get used to a new harness that I never sat in before and an open face helmet. Well that race I led for most of the time and took all the leading points, but in the end I missed my first daily win on PWC in final glide.
