All about Nicole

I am the Canadian female paragliding champion since 2003 and a member of Team Canada. I hold the Canadian female distance XC record as well as the altitude gain record. I represented Canada at the FAI World Championships in 2005, 2007, and 2009, and have flown in various Paragliding World Cups since 2010.

I started flying in 1999, with Pegasus Paragliding in Nova Scotia. Originally a skydiver, I found I enjoyed the canopy ride over the freefall, so looked for a sport that was "just that". After my 1-day course with Michael Fuller (at Pegasus), I was fully hooked and signed up the very next day for the Novice course. A year later I moved to British Columbia for graduate school and was able to more fully indulge my PG passion with the abundance of local mountains and a larger pilot base to draw upon.

My first competition was the Canadian Paragliding Nationals in 2002. I don’t remember how I did, but that was unimportant as I was just there to soak in the atmosphere, fly a new site, and spend time with my friends. I started attending more and more competitions, until I was proficient enough to get quite good standings in both the overall and female categories. In 2004 I attended my first FAI test event in Brazil and was accepted to my first World Championships a year later.