Explainer: How to launch like a pro
Athletes need skills to launch their paragliders – here's how they do it

In the Red Bull X-Alps athletes hike up, launch, fly, land, hike up, launch again. In this way they stitch together the kilometers and cover distance.
athletes will often need to launch many times a day, and usually from a mountainside where people don’t usually launch from.
That means their launching skills have to be perfect. You can’t afford for something to go wrong when you are launching in the wilderness, miles from any other people or possible help.