Alex Hofer (paraglider pilot)

Alex Hofer (born January 13, 1977 ) is a Swiss paraglider pilot from Heimberg BE . In 2002 he became European champion and overall world cup winner and won the world championship title the following year. To date, Hofer is the only pilot to have won all three titles.

education and profession

Alex Hofer attended high school and studied physics in Bern. He moved to China in 2002, where he worked in a paragliding club in Beijing and learned the Chinese language. In 2004 he moved to southern China and worked there as a buyer for European companies at local factories.

Sports

Alex Hofer has been fascinated by paragliding since he was 10 and made his first flight in Grindelwald on his 16th birthday when he reached the legal minimum age. Cross-country flights and competitions around the world soon followed. In 1995 he began to fly competitions, in 2001 he became Swiss champion . His greatest successes to date were in 2002 when he won both the PWC and the European Paragliding Championships . In 2003 he was able to win the title of world champion .

On August 13, 2003, he flew 277 km from Ebenalp to Lienz , a distance previously unthinkable for Europe.

In 2005, after twelve days of racing, he won the Red Bull X-Alps by over a day over second-placed Urs Lötscher . Two years later he won it after 14 days of racing with a good four hours ahead of second-placed Toma Coconea. In 2009 he finished second in the Red Bull X-Alps and only had to admit defeat to his compatriot Chrigel Maurer .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ 277 km with a paraglider from Ebenalp ( memento from July 28, 2017 in the Internet Archive ) on tagblatt.ch from December 16, 2003