Flying High

Concordia Student Heads to Red Bull Paper Wings World Championship

SportsAndrew Maggio — Published April 8, 2012

Concordia student ZSean Qureshi will be representing Canada at the Red Bull Paper Wings World Championship, taking place in Salzburg, Austria May 4-5.

The 24-year-old civil engineering major won in the distance category at the MX Aerospace Center in Toronto on Monday with a stellar result of 37.4 m (122.7 feet). The competition consisted of students from 10 universities throughout the country. Joining Qureshi in Austria will be airtime winner William Murphy of Bishop’s University and aerobics winner Addison Asuchak of Mount Royal University.

Qureshi originally qualified for the competition back in February when Red Bull held a qualifying round in Concordia’s EV building.

“The Red Bull people were set up in the EV building, I was just passing by and I thought I would give it a shot,” said Qureshi, “I made my plane, threw it, and I won for distance.”

Qureshi cited a childhood pastime as a key in his successful creation of planes that were able to fly such long distances.

“When I was kid I used to make all kinds of things, and I liked doing origami,” said Qureshi, “I just remembered one of the models I used to make as a kid that would go far, I just threw it and I won.”

Despite his success, Qureshi admits that it’s something he never really envisioned happening, but he remains excited about the upcoming trip to the world championships in Austria.

“I would have never thought of it,” said Qureshi, “It was pretty long ago that I had last tried to do anything with paper planes.”

“I’m very excited,” he continued. “The only thing is that we have finals coming up, and we fly to Austria a couple of days after my last exam. I’ll still have four or five days between [my two exams] though, so I’ll definitely practise leading up to it.”