Indonesia'€™s paragliders proved that they were a force to be reckoned with after Dede Supratman won the eighth World Paragliding Accuracy Championship (WPAC), which came to a close after a weeklong competition on Sunday in Puncak, West Java.

The 28-year-old local athlete dethroned world number one Matjaz Sluga of Slovenia and strong contenders from Europe.

The competition featured 121 pilots, 24 of who were women, from 19 countries.

In the last of five rounds, Dede landed dead center on the pad to concede the least penalty score of 8. Sluga, and Tomas Letnik of Czech Republic, who had topped the standings overnight, were relegated to second and third with 9 and 10 points, respectively.

'€œDede'€™s victory is a sweet present for the nation, which is celebrating its 70th anniversary of independence,'€ Tagor Siagian, head of the tournament'€™s public relations, said in a press release on Sunday.

Hailing from Cisarua, Puncak, Dede, the youngest of four siblings, is described as a former '€œparaboy'€, a term given to locals who assist paragliders in packing and unpacking parachutes during training.

'€œComing home from school, he would head to the landing area about 100 meters from his house,'€ Tagor said.

'€œHe started gaining knowledge about paragliding at an early age, learning flying and landing techniques from domestic and foreign pilots. He now is the king of world'€™s landing accuracy,'€ he said.

In the women'€™s category, Nunnapat Phuchong of Thailand proved to be the most accurate lander with 11 points, followed by Hye Joung-ho of South Korea (239) and Jolanta Romanenko of Lithuania (339).

Mariko Ito of Japan had initially taken the runner-up position before being relegated to 16th place following a protest by England against round four results. The organizers and monitoring team from world governing body FAI later ruled that Ito was guided by ground radio when she was near the landing pad.

Indonesian veteran Lis Andriana, winner of the 2012-2014 PGAWC series, who was reported to have been troubled by a nagging knee injury, faltered in 20th position.

Dede'€™s success in winning the world event is expected to provide leverage for the national federation in its push for the sport to be included in the next Asian Games Indonesia will host in 2018.

But Dede will have to prove his championship worth further at the ninth WPAC event in Albania in 2017.

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