Red Bull Paper Wings World Finals National Winners from Northern, Central and Western Provinces represent SL in Austria

Sri Lanka’s Manitha Abeysiriwardana

Action from the event

The official Paper Plane World Championship, Red Bull Paper Wings, was concluded in Salzburg, Austria recently. Three competitors, who emerged winners of the Northern, Central, and Western Provinces at the local-level qualifiers, represented Sri Lanka at the World Finals. 

The 2022/sixth edition of the World Final at Hangar-7 in Salzburg saw a record number of pilots competing in three categories: Distance, Airtime and Aerobatics. More than 61,000 hopefuls across 60 countries participated in this year’s event. 

According to the rules, all Distance and Airtime pilots were required to make their plane from identical materials; namely a single, standardised sheet of A4 paper provided by the event organizers. Their task was to fold the most aerodynamic shape possible; no cutting, tearing, gluing, stapling, or other such modifications were permitted.
Lazar Krstić of Serbia dominated the distance event, launching a first throw of 57.13m that no one could top, and then – even though he’d already won – he took his second throw even farther, to 61.11m.

In the Airtime category, pilots threw their planes high into Hangar-7’s arched glass ceiling, aiming for the longest time between takeoff and landing. Competing in the Super Final, Rana Muhammad Usman Saeed of Pakistan ended a 10-year-wait for redemption by winning with a time of 14.86 seconds, setting a new Red Bull Paper Wings World Final record.

In the Aerobatics competition, pilots had just 60 seconds to dazzle the judging panel, who based their scores on creativity, overall flight performance, and technical proficiency. Music, costumes, props, and multiple types of paper planes were allowed, and Seunghoon Lee of South Korea captured first place in a performance where he wore a formal black tuxedo, presented magician-like choreography, and launched planes that twirled, boomeranged, and flapped their wings. 

Manitha Abeysiriwardana and Senesh Weerasiri, who represented Sri Lanka at this year’s event, thanked Red Bull for giving wiiings to them to experience an international event. “We’ve been making and flying paper planes since childhood; we never imagined we’d be representing the country one day. We are very grateful to Red Bull for the opportunity and will be surely aiming higher next year!”