Alex Mateos adds to medal haul with Gold at Popham

France’s Alex Mateos continued his domination of the international paramotoring competition scene with a strong win at the 9th FAI Paramotoring World Championships in Popham, England last week, 20-27 August 2016.

The young Frenchman took gold in paramotoring and helped lead France to a Team gold in the Nations category too.

“I am proud to have my new title of FAI World Paramotoring Champion 2016!” Mateos said afterwards.

Mateos’s win adds another gold to his growing collection – he won the paramotoring event at the FAI World Air Games in Dubai in December last year, and earlier this year won the FAI World Paramotor Slalom Championships too. He also won the French National Championships.

“This is the best year of competitions that I have ever had,” he said after he had returned home to France. “My goal now is to keep these titles.”

It was a near clean sweep for France and French pilots across the rest of the paramotoring competition.

The team dominated the Nations category, scoring a total of 36,564 points across 10 tasks. In second place, Czech Republic was a massive 8,000 points behind. Poland was fourth with 27,680.

Mateos won the solo foot-launch category, the biggest class in the competition with 45 pilots from 14 nations. He scored 5,458 points – 148 more than second place team mate Julien Barbier. Pasquale Biondo (ITA) was in third.

Marie Mateos (FRA) took gold in the Women’s competition, with Kristianna May Draper (CAN) in second and Thailand’s Janeiro Chui-Noei in third.

France also picked up gold in the solo trikes category, where Thomas Petit came first, and the foot-launch tandem category, where Fabrice Breuzard and Christelle Breuzard won the day.

It didn’t all go France’s way, however. In the tandem trikes category Czech pair Lubomir Zavorka and Daniel Trochta won gold.

The competition was held at Popham airfield in southern England, about 80km from London.

Run at the same time and same place as the FAI Paramotor World Championships, the FAI World Microlight Championships saw pilots compete across five classes, including solo and tandem trikes, and tandem gyrocopters.

For a full list of winners in both competitions and to see all the results, see the competition website at www.wmpc2016.com.

More pictures here.

(Team France sings "La Marseillaise" during the medal ceremony)

 Photo Credit: Alex Mateos / Pascal Vallee