Call to take part in the FCI Centenary Champion of Champions event
Half of the FCI Centenary Year has now gone by and we can already look back on two
very successful centenary events: the FCI Centenary Winner Show in Dortmund and
the FCI Centenary World Dog Show in Paris. The next major event, shortly to be taking
place, will be the Centenary European Show in Leeuwarden (NL). We would like to
take this opportunity of wishing the organisers every success.
The culmination of the Centenary Year will be the FCI Cynological Days, to be held
in Brussels on 11-14 November. We would like to recommend the following events to
member and partner countries: the symposium on 11 November and the FCI Centenary
World Champion of Champions (CoC) competition on 12 November 2011 (open to qualified
dogs), together with the Centenary Gala Evening (for delegates from national kennel
clubs and invited guests). We recommend exhibitors not to miss the FCI Centenary
World Champion of Champions event on 12 November. Entries for this event will be
accepted and processed by the Union Royale Cynologique Saint-Hubert in the period
5-30 September 2011. Reminder: Qualified dogs are those having gained a CACIB at
either the Brussels Show in December 2010 or at one of the Centenary shows (Dortmund,
Paris or Leeuwarden) in 2011. Also entitled to take part are all "FCI international
champions" (CIB and CIE). With the CoC event in Brussels a "once in a blue moon"
event, we hope to see as many qualified dogs as possible taking part. The more dogs
entered, the more interesting the competition will be. We are counting on your being
there!
Yours sincerely,
Hans W. Müller
FCI President
17th IRO World Championship Search- and Rescue Dogs in Chastre Belgium: Czechs overall
winners, also titles for Switzerland and Italy.
As overall winner of the 17th edition of the world Championship Search- and Rescue
Dogs, organised by the International organisation the IRO, the Czech dog teams stood
on the podia.
The Czech Rescue Dog Brigade SZBK won the team competition and in the category Track
searching it was Miroslav Cenek who won before Iveta Matenauerova.
In the discipline Water Rescue Eva Kacerkova and Petr Katrev won second and third
place respectively. Both were beaten by Nicola Carrara from Italy.
The Golden Medal Rubble Search went to Tanja Pommeranz (Switzerland). The Silver
medal was for Dr Isabella Kühn from Germany, Bronze for Andrej Zunic from Slovenia.
In the discipline Area Search there was no winner. For the first time in the history
of the World Championship no competitor was able to finish in this discipline. For
the IRO-president Dr Wolfgang Zörner “this is alarming and a damper on this contest,
a sign that in the future we all should work and focus on”.
The most obvious reason is probably the fact that the dogs work too fast from the
start on of the 20 minutes time, so that at the end they are exhausted and the fine
nose work fades away.
No less than 116 competitors from 20 different nations had entered for this World
Championship that took place in “wonderful conditions” (cfr Dr Zörner). Teams came
from as far as Argentina, South Korea and Japan and from almost all nations of Europe
as well as from Ukraine. The largest team was the one from Austria with 21 teams
(team is dog & master), followed by Slovenia with 15. The Czech Republic had 14
teams, Germany 11 and Holland 10.
53 Participants were entered in the category Rubble Search, 50 for Area Search,
8 for Track Search and 5 for Water Rescue. Another 8 teams were present as Reserve
teams in case someone would fall away.
Paul Cech