Women's World Gliding Champion Sarah Kelman breaks new ground next week when she competes in the World Gliding Championships which start in Rieti, Italy on Monday (July 7).

Sarah, 37, a member of the Cambidge Gliding Club based at Gransden Lodge Airfield, won her second world title last year at Romorantin in France, and she will be competing for the first time in the hitherto male preserve of the FAI World Championships.

That chance comes about following a recent rule change which gives the reigning Women's World Champions an automatic entry.

Sarah, a professional airline pilot, will be flying in the Standard Class as part of an extremely strong British team. Her teammates will be the defending champion Leigh Wells from the Bristol & Gloucester club and two pilots from Hampshire, two times world silver medallist Richard Hood and the 2001 World Junior Champions and runner-up at the 2004 World Championships, Jay Rebbeck.

Work commitments prevented Sarah defending her world title in 2003, but she added a world bronze medal in 2005, just four months after giving birth to her and husband James' first child, Elizabeth.

After the birth of her second child, Matthew in September 2006, she was back in gold medal winning form last year, taking her second world title at Romorantin.

For the next two weeks, the British team will be racing at speeds of up to 200kmph against the world's top pilots over courses that will range from 100km up to 500km or, if the weather conditions are favourable, even further.

In preparation for the championship, Sarah has been training for the last two weeks in and around Rieti, getting used to the airspace and the mountain conditions.

She took up gliding in 1991 because she saw it as an affordable way of achieving her ambition of becoming a commercial airline pilot. And having achieved that, Sarah works as a captain in easyJet's Airbus 319 fleet but admits that her motivation has changed – she now regards flying large airliners as a means of maintaining her gliding lifestyle!

She is also the holder of no fewer than 47 British gliding records and Sarah instructs at the Cambridge Gliding Club.

"It's a privilege to be able to share the thrill of flight with someone for the first time," she said.