Born and educated in Loughborough, England, Nicky now lives in Barcelona, Spain.
A qualified chartered quantity surveyor Nicky used to work on building sites across Britain. She gave up her job in 2002 to concentrate fulltime on paragliding.
Nicky is an accomplished paraglider pilot. She has been a member of the British Paragliding Squad for five years and is consistently one of the top British female pilots in the world rankings.
Nicky learned to fly in Scotland in 1999 and has progressed rapidly through the sport. She became an Advanced Pilot early on in her career after working her way through the British Hang and Paragliding Association’s training courses.
Competition
She started competing around the world in international competitions in 2003.
In February 2004 she won the women’s Australian Open to become Australian Women’s Champion. She continued to perform well for the rest of the year, winning three other international women’s competitions: the Portuguese Caldelas Open, the Himalayan Open in India and the Catalan Championship in Spain.
Nicky represented her country at the European Paragliding Championships in Greece during October 2004.
In 2005 Nicky returned to Australia where she was a member of the four-strong team which won the hotly-contested Manilla XC Open in New South Wales.
A month later, in March 2005, she flew at the World Championships in Governador Valadares, Brazil. Once again she was a member of the seven-strong British Team (five men and two women).
Back in Europe she competed in Italy, where she set a new British Out-and-Return distance record while flying in the Polish Open in Pieve D'Alpago, Italy. The flight of 65.6km has been ratified as a GB record.
She competed in Austria, France, Portugal, Slovenia and Spain and came second woman in the Iberian Cup held in Larouco on the Spain/Portugal border.
In February 2006, again in Australia, she broke the site distance record in Killarney Australia with a flight of 103km. An accident later that month put her out of action for the rest of the summer. But after time out to recover, she returned to competitive flying in September 2006 and competed at the British Open in Àger, Spain. She won the women’s competition, taking the top spot on the podium.
During 2007 an incident while attempting to land in strong wind put Nicky in hospital with a broken back but failed to dent her enthusiasm for her sport. After just 2 months and still wearing a body brace she was back in the air testing both her physical and mental ability to continue flying. After a winter of relaxed free-flying Nicky travelled to Castello in Brasil for her first post-injury competition. Neither body nor mind were completely fixed but being back in high level competition gave Nicky the incentive to get fit for the European summer season. During the next competitive event, the Spanish Championships / Pre World Cup in central Spain Nicky found herself relaxed and enjoying the flying to such a degree that all distractions were forgotten and she flew to became female champion.
Nicky is now competing in a very relaxed way, just flying in the places she wants to visit
and enjoying the fantastic cultural experiences that paragliding has brought to her.
Nicky is well regarded on the international paragliding circuit as both a competitor and experienced organiser / director of events.
Achievements
Nicky’s achievements include:
• British Team member World Paragliding Championships 2007
• British Team member 2004 and 2005
• British Squad member 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007
• British Record Holder: Out and Return Distance
• Champion Spanish Championship and Pre World Cup Arcones (female) 2008
• Champion British Open Àger (female) 2006
• Vice-Champion Spanish Nationals Cadiz & Tenerife (female) 2006
• Vice-Champion Iberian Cup (female) 2005
• Team Champions Manilla XC Open 2005
• Champion Himalayan Open (female) 2004
• Champion Open Caldelas Larouco (female) 2004
• Champion Australian Open (female) 2004
• Champion of Catalonia (female) 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006
Sponsorship
Nicky is sponsored by:
• Axis para
• www.isyte.com : Oakley eyewear
• High Performance Consulting: mental sports training
• Kortel Design
Nicky makes her living as a professional paraglider pilot through sponsorship, promotion work and motivational speaking.
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