#269 Navigating Doubts with Violeta Jimenez

#269 Navigating Doubts with Violeta Jimenez

From Cloudbase Mayhem Podcast by Gavin McClurg

March 30, 2026 · 1h 4m

About this episode

Violeta Jimenez shares her journey from ballet and ultra running to becoming an elite competition paraglider, discussing the challenges and accidents she faced along the way.

Violeta Jiminez has become one of the most elite competition paragliders in the world in a relatively short period of time. Her first World Cup was only 5 years ago in Aksaray, Turkey flying a Zeno. Last year she was on the podium in the OVERALL, again in Turkey, this time in Çameli. But it's been anything but easy. Violeta came to flying from a background in ballet and ultra running and as Will Gadd says, coming to flying from non-gravity sports can be not just challenging but risky. In the early years Violeta's desire was well ahead of her skills and she had a number of incidents and accidents, and one particularly violent accident that required a long mental and physical rehab.

People in this episode

Host: Gavin McClurg

Guest: Violeta Jimenez

Topics covered

  • paragliding
  • competition
  • mental health
  • rehabilitation
  • sports background

Keywords

  • paragliding
  • competition
  • Violeta Jimenez
  • mental rehab
  • sports transition

Mentioned in this episode

Places: Aksaray, Turkey, Çameli

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