VENEK – HUNGARY
21st -23rd november 2014
FISTC  European Championships Cart

    Here we are. Our FISTC European Championships Cart started yesterday evening with a very beautiful and impressive opening ceremony.
    Venek is a very nice small village close to the very sportive city of Győr, quite close to the Austrian border. Small village totally devoted to our pure breed Sled dogs Sports for four days. Every year they are used to organise a major sled dogs race and this year they are organising a splendid FISTC European Championship together with ESZKSK, the Hungarian Federation for Sled Dogs Sports, with the support of the Austrian friends.
    Since the beginning this race reached a full success with 140 participants coming from 14 different countries. some participants coming from very far away like the Russian teams from St Petersburg or Moscow and many others.
    Today we had the first heat with the first team starting at 10:00 am and the last canicross category starting at 3:24 pm. Weather was almost perfect, sunny all day and cold (+3° C) so all dogs and mushers really enjoyed it. Not any single problem with any dog.
    Trails were perfectly prepared and marked and the whole race has been a total success with 100 percent satisfied mushers (and dogs also of course).
    Three trails have been prepared, a 17 km trail for mid distance classes, a 9 km trail for O, A and B sprint classes and a 5 km trail for smaller categories. According to all mushers all trails were perfectly prepared and marked.
    Competition has been tough in all categories and with the new rules adopted at the last GA there are now many participants in each class.
    In middle distance O Jana Henychova (Cz) is leading after this first heat closely followed by Gerald Schinzel and Manfred Komac both from Austria.  in Mid A, Roman Habasko (Cz) has been really impressive, flying over the trail ! Two other Czech mushers, Romana Guregova and Martin Brzek are respectevely leading the Mid B and C classes. It really seems that the Mid distance has become a Czech specialty.
    In sprint, on the 9 km trail, Jean Claude Peru (F) is first, one and half minute faster than Zsofia Verla (Hun), followed by Knud Schmolz (Dk). In B1 Maros Litvaj (Sk) is leading and France takes the second and third places with Stephane Poublanc and Lionel Duprat. In B2, as usual should I say, the leader is Berndt Sauerhöfer with his Greenland dogs.

    On the shorter trail of 5 km, the C1 class is actually leaded by Jana Zemcakova (Sk), Pascal Gerard (F) and Jaroslav Charouz (Cz) as the diffrence in time is of just a few seconds. In C2, Z. Piskac is first with a beautiful team of Malamutes. D1 and D2 classes are respectevely leaded by the Slovaks Igor Pribula  and Samuel Horbal (Junior).
    Many starters in Bike categories: In Bike 2 dogs men the first five are in less than 1 mn and the leader is Andrej Drabik (Sk). Bike 2 dogs women is leaded by E. Smejkal-Hayn (A). Igor Stephan (sk) is first in Bike 1 dog man, Salvatore Fogliano (I) is first in Bike 1 dog Men 2 with an Alaskan Malamute, Sixtine Roussel (F) is leading the Bike 1 dog women class. Many participants also in the Scoter categories, and the leaders today are in scoot 2 dogs Sebastian Astelbauer (A), Scoot 2 dogs junior, Alexey Tarazanov (Rus), scoot 1 dog, Juliette Fouarge (F), Scoot 1 dog 2, Gabor Rosner (hun) with a splendid Groenland dog (the first in Hungary).
    Then for canicross, we used the Mass start for the four different categories, always spectacular. Canicross 2 dogs is led by Sylvia Perl (A), Canicross 1 dog men by Michal Ivanco (Sk), canicross 1 dog women by Edina Koris (Hun) and Canicross Junior by Tereza Zitna (Cz).
    After a nice evening party tonight (there is one every evening), all the mushers will be ready for the tough competitions that will take place tomorrow from 10:00 am, with as the weather forecasts promise another beautiful and cold day that will please all dogs and their mushers.
    The final word tonight will be thank you Hungary, thank you Venek and thank you ESZKSK for the perfect organisation and the splendid time we all are enjoying, time of very high level sports with our real pure breed dogs and time of friendship!
    Tomorrow will be another very exciting day.

RESULTS AFTER 1ST DAY
 
 

Photos: György Sipiczki