World News for Students of English

19-05-2015 07:00

Finalists of the fourth edition up the Red Bull Paper Wings world paper aeroplane championships descended on Salzburg, Austria on Saturday to settle the 2015 titles for the furthest throw, most aerobatic flight and the aircraft that flew for the longest time.

Organisers said that 46,000 people around the world entered the competitions, with over 500 qualifying contests narrowing the contenders down to just 200. And this has got to be one of the only sports where it’s okay to fold under pressure.

The furthest throw was a whopping 53.22 metres for Veselin Ivanov of Bulgaria who designed the pencil-slim aircraft that flew straight as an arrow. In the aerobatics category, the winner Avedis Tchamitchian of Lebanon, scored a maximum of 50 points from the judges.

And there was a nail-biting finale for the longest air time title, the narrowest seen at the Red Bull Paper Wings World Finals, as Armenia’s Karen Hambardzumyan launched his aircraft high up into the hangar’s roof and it descended in an elegant spiralling flight, lasting 14.36 seconds.

Difficult words: descend on (to come to), settle (to set or to decide), contender (a person who contends for something – competes or fights with others to achieve something), to fold under pressure (this is a joke because you fold a piece of paper to make a paper plane, but to fold under pressure means to give up or stop doing something because of too much pressure), whopping (very large), nail-biting (extremely exciting), launch (to set in motion), descend (to fall down).

Source: www.ondemandnews.com