Balloons to soar over WA for Women’s World Championship

Competition ballooning in Northam, WA, in May 2023. (Image: Michelle Blackhurst)

Western Australia will host the fifth FAI Women’s World Hot Air Ballooning Championship next month.

The championship, to be held in Northam around 100km east of Perth from 2 to 9 September, is the first in five years and the first ever outside the Northern Hemisphere. Five Australians will compete including NSW’s Nicola Scaife, already a two-time world champion.

Thirty pilots from 13 nations will compete in the championships, the largest number of balloons ever seen in a competition event in WA. In a statement, organisers hailed Northam as WA’s “home of hot air ballooning”.

“This is the first Women’s World Championship held in 5 years. It was last held in Poland and the event scheduled for 2020 was cancelled due to COVID so there’s great excitement from teams representing Australia, Austria, Brazil, Bulgaria, Germany, Hungary, Japan, Latvia, Lithuania, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Poland, UK, and USA,” they said.

“The Women’s World Championships present an opportunity to see Northam and Ballardong Nyoongar Boodja at its best with the sky full of colour as 30 balloons float majestically across the rolling hills over vivid canola fields.”