Paragliding is an adventure sport practiced as a recreational as well as a competitive sport. Paragliders use a special parachute, known as a paragliding wing, to catch air currents and soar over the countryside. They are towed into the air by winches or run down mountains or hillsides to take off.

In 1952 Canadian Domina Jalbert licensed a parachute with multi-cells and controls forparallel glide.

In 1954, Walter Neumark anticipated (in an article in Flight magazine) a time when a lightweight glider pilot would be “ready to glide himself by running over the edge of a mountain or down an incline … ”

From the 1980s, gear has kept on improving, and the quantity of paragliding pilots and built up gliding sites has kept on expanding. The first Paragliding World Championship was held in Verbier, Switzerland, in 1987; however, the first formally authorized FAI(Fédération Aéronautique Internationale) World Paragliding Championship was held in Kössen, Austria, in 1989.