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| 1 December 2015 |
| First Gold! |  | | Donatas Pauzuolis from Lithuania took the first Gold medal of the FAI World Air Games on Tuesday evening, when he won the F3P Aerobatics Modelling at the Dubai Mall. He swept through the competition with near perfection – winning every heat and establishing a clear lead from the start.
“It is a dream,” he said, “I’ve spent half a year of my life training for this, and everything paid off.” The 31-year-old competitor went to extreme lengths to give himself the edge. As well as flying the only hand built carbon fibre model in the competition – “It took a ridiculous number of hours to make” – he’d even scoped the site out online before arriving in Dubai.
“I went on the internet and found the dimensions of this space, and then I went looking for a place with the same size back home.” Luckily he found it in the Sportima Hall, a sports hall near his house. “It was only two minutes from my house, so I could train a lot.”
It's the second World Air Games win for Donatas – he won Gold back at the WAGs in 2009 too.
He thanked his family, friends back home and his supporter in the competition, Ricardas Siumbrys. | |
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| It's been jumpin'... |  | | There were over 1,000 jumps made at the Skydive Dubai Desert Campus today in preparation for the competition which starts this week. We hung out with the Golden Knights and some of the other competitors...
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| On the spot |  | | | FAI Media Team photographer Marcus King was on hand to capture the action on the practice day at the Desert Campus. See a full set of his best photos from the day... | |
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| The Happy Acro Guy |  | |
The paraglider acro fiends have been practising all day, jumping out of helicopters and spiralling and looping down to the raft in the bay. It's rare to find competitors from the US in Paragliding Aerobatics competitions, but there are a few pilots out there.
One American who does compete is Max Marien, 27. He’s come from San Diego in California to compete with what he says is a trio of new stunts he's developed. "They've never been seen in a competition before," he said ahead of the contest in the United Arab Emirates...
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| Alex's Top 5 |  | | The microlight, gryocopter and paramotor pilots were all out tuning their engines on Tuesday. Paramotoring champion Alex Mateos gave us his top tips for getting into the high-octane sport of paramotor slalom...
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| What's coming up |  | | Competition starts in earnest on Wednesday 2 December 2015. We're posting news, interviews, mini-movies, photos, and info on multiple channels throughout the two weeks. Keep up to date via Twitter, Facebook and our website.
We have a dedicated band of roving reporters out there in the field, working for the FAI. If you bump into any of us over the next 10 days say hello and smile for the camera :)
See you in the air! | |
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About the FAI
The Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI), the World Air Sports Federation, is the world governing body for air sports and for certifying world aviation and space records. The FAI was found in 1905 and is a non-governmental and non-profit-making organisation recognised by the International Olympic Committee (IOC). FAI activities include Balloons and Airships, Power Flying, Gliding, Helicopter flight, Parachuting, Aeromodelling, Aerobatics, Hang Gliding, Microlight and Paramotor flying, Amateur-Built and Experimental Aircraft, Manpowered flying, Paragliding and all other Aeronautic and Astronautic sporting activities. |
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