Queenstown's Melanie Heather won the pilot award as well as the female pilot award and fellow Queenstown resident Louis Tapper flew away with second place, out of 183 pilots - the biggest ever turnout for the novice event, which has been running for 17 years.
Ms Heather was the first female pilot to win the competition.
Though Ms Heather and other New Zealanders entered the competition last year and were put with an international team, New Zealand has never put its own team forward.
''We thought it would be really good to get a New Zealand team together ... and lo and behold we got 26 New Zealanders involved.''
''We entered a New Zealand state team, to the amusement of the Australians.''
Sadly, New Zealand missed out on prying the Paragliding State of Origin trophy out of Australian hands by 31 points out of 6000. New South Wales was the winner.
The states, including New Zealand and the international team, were split into crews of five and within each crew there was a mentor.
The Queenstown crew consisted of Danny Murphy, Richard Hilliard, Tim Heather, Mark Hardman and Melanie Heather.
''The competition was about flying as long as you can in a straight line,'' Ms Heather said.
She said the Australian states now had permanent competition.
''We're super keen to go back and get the Australian state trophy.''
The Paragliding State of Origin website quips ''the Kiwis came with a solid team and a week of preparation on site expecting to win''.
''They held the lead going into the last day only to be pipped at the post by a resurgent NSW team who grabbed the trophy for the first time in five years.''
There were no accidents and the event booked out all available accommodation in Manilla, which has a population of about 2000, ''adding a welcome boost to the district's tourism turnover''.
