'Invented' by Australian John Dickenson in the early 1960s, the hang glider reached Brazil a decade later. More specifically in Rio de Janeiro, where the Cristo Redentor welcomed with open arms the first free flight recorded in Brazilian skies. Accompanied by TV Globo's cameras, Frenchman Stephan Segonzac took off from Corcovado on September 12, 1974, and landed at the Jockey Club, in the Jardim Botânico.
Watch the impressive footage in the video below:
Following the Corcovado jump, two cariocas became interested in hang gliding and, together with Stephan Segonzac, looked for a suitable place for lessons. The land they found belonged to the man who would go on to become the pioneer of the sport in Brazil, Luis Cláudio Mattos: a go-kart track with a small hill in the middle, ideal for learning hang gliding. The first two interested parties ended up giving up, but Luis Cláudio persisted and made his first hang glider flight jumping from Pedra da Agulhinha. Shortly after, he built a ramp on the site, which became known as Rampa Antiga or Rampa das Margaridas. The carioca pilot was also the pioneer of tandem flying in the country, a practice still very popular today.
Free flying in São Conrado in the 1970s. Source: Veja Rio report, 10/06/2017
Image description: The image is a black-and-white photograph of hang gliding in São Conrado in the 1970s. On the left side, we see a green area with dense vegetation and some buildings under construction. In the center, a hang glider is in flight, with a pilot hanging beneath it. On the right, there is a beach with people walking and playing. In the background, we see tall buildings and an industrial structure.In a short time, the number of practitioners in Rio's skies increased exponentially. In 1975, the first Brazilian Free Flight Championship took place. One of the most important names in the sport in Brazil was Rio native Pedro Paulo Lopes, better known as Pepê. A multi-talented athlete, besides being a hang-gliding pilot he was also a surfing champion and horse-riding practitioner. In 1981, Pepê won the Free Flight World Championship in Japan, the country where, ten years later, at just 33 years of age, he suffered a fatal accident. The tragedy occurred during an international championship in Wakayama, held under quite adverse weather conditions.
Brazil would be world champion once again in 1999, in Monte Cucco (Italy), winning the team gold. At the same championship, pilots André Wolf and Pedro Matos secured the silver and bronze medals in the individual podium. The gold-winning team was made up of six pilots, four of them cariocas: Pedro Matos, Guga Saldanha, Luizinho and Carlinhos Niemeyer. Champion Pedro Matos tells us about this and many other achievements:
Brazil was runner-up in the 2001 and 2003 world championships and then went 16 years without reaching the podium. The title drought was only broken in 2019, when the Brazilian team won the silver medal in the region of Tolmezzo, Italy.
Rio de Janeiro remains one of the leading Brazilian cities for hang gliding and the record holder for tandem flights. The ramp at Pedra Bonita, in São Conrado, receives dozens of people daily and is one of the most famous in Brazil. Like any extreme sport, free flying carries dangers that can be lethal, but its practitioners take on the risks in exchange for the feeling of freedom and the chance to soar over one of the most beautiful landscapes in the world, one that only Rio has to offer.
Photo by Filipo Tardim. Jornalistas que correm website
Image description: This is a photograph of a hang gliding flight over an urban and mountainous landscape. On the left, we see a distant mountain with an irregular shape, covered in green vegetation. In the center, there is a large blue body of water, where some small islands can be seen. On the right, there is a rocky mountain with an angular shape, also covered in vegetation. In the center of the image, we see a densely populated city with many tall buildings. On the left, a hang glider with red and white wings is flying above the city. The sky is clear blue and cloudless.
