Jason Searle, Leo Geary Memorial Trophy 2023 winner

Jason Searle is the 2023 awardee - here is a Facebook post that he made about receiving the award. He sent these photos (click a small image to see the full size photo):

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This is what Jason had to say about receiving the Award:

After retiring from a semi professional career in kayaking I was lost as to what my next adventure would be. Knowing absolutely nothing about paragliding I signed up for a course and dove head first into a whole new world of possibilities. Over the past few years I have been lucky to surround myself with some of the best pilots in the country and I attribute my progression as a pilot to their dedication to me. I am now lucky enough to be teaching paragliding at the school I learned to fly with and look forward to developing my skills as a pilot alongside mentoring others.

After witnessing Blake Round put a paraglider into an infinite loop I knew exactly what I wanted from this sport. My true passion now lies wholeheartedly with acro paragliding and I can only dream of achieving that level of pilotage.

I have had a humbling start to my paragliding career receiving both the Acrofest Rookie Trophy and Leo Geary Trophy in the same year. I would like to make special mention of Chris Connolly who has invested significant time and effort into helping me achieve this.

I am honored to receive the Leo Geary trophy and put my name beside many of the pilots I look up to.

"Jason has only been flying for a short period of time and has been progressing well for the amount of time that he has been flying, but he has also worked on the basics and has done towing over water and doing acrobatics and wing handling and consequently his wing handling is very good. He is starting to push into doing cross-country flying and is doing well for his experience level. He could have pushed a lot harder a lot quicker, but he has been taking the progressions step-by-step. Jason participated in the 2023 PG Nationals in Wanaka and did very well relative to other pilots of his skill level."

Back to Leo Geary Trophy page.

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