First Days Competition

26th September – First day’s competition

Sometimes events happen in life that make you realise how insignificant and irrelevant ones own immediate experiences are. For Team GB, that happened on Thursday evening when news of Bernadette and Dennis sad loss through illness of one of their star shelties ‘Hex’.

People connected with the team have known Bernadette and Dennis much better and longer than me and Jackie (have). But, ironically, we forged a relationship on the GB team trip to Norway last year, and now we would like to think we can call them ‘friends’. Personally when I look back at that trip, almost all the happy recollections involve Bernadette and Dennis somehow. So it is difficult to write the following without in the back of my mind thinking……..and so what, does it really matter? So please forgive me if I miss out any details.

Opening ceremony / supporters

The WC always starts with an open ceremony in which the teams get to parade around the arena. Last year I was very grateful to be asked to carry the flag ahead of Team GB. This was (and will remain) one of the proudest moments of my agility career. I think that competitors know when the event has started as all the teams are in the arena seeing each other and exchanging banter. This year the organisers wanted to keep the ceremony short and quite frankly the whole event (in my opinion) was lost. We quickly paraded in, and just as quick out. I’ll be interested to gauge the other colleagues’ opinions in the next few days on what they thought.

As to the amount of supporters in the arena today, Kate Howard and myself couldn’t agree. I thought it was about 40% full, but Kate thinks it was more. One point that Kate did make was that the advance ticket sales led to supporter groups being fragmented around the stands, so perhaps reduced the atmosphere a bit today? From my point of view, I thought that the ‘dancing segments’ between events wasn’t as good as last year and so made the internal atmosphere a little flatter. However it is day one so perhaps tomorrow might be better.

Competition
Today the event focused on the team jumping (for all heights) and Large team agility. For the record, Brazil deservedly won the large competition, running last and keeping their cool in the agility rounds.

But the ‘hard luck story’ of the day belongs to GB large in the jumping. Running last they had seen most teams have faults at the weave poles (both entry and exit). Karen Stanbrook started for GB and put in a fantastic quick round with just one jump down. So far so good. Next up steps ‘big’ Dave Alderson. Big Dave and Spice were putting in their usual fast clear until number 18 when he (himself) knocked a wing over. Under FCI that is elimination. That was very, very cruel.

However Dave had to pick himself straight up and run early with Libby in the small. A great clear round from that pair, followed by a blistering quick round from Nicola and Indie (unfortunately one jump down) was completed by an excellent clear from Rachel and Meg. At time of writing, with just 5 course faults, the smalls are in contention. They compete in the agility round of the team tomorrow afternoon.
Come on Small Team GB!

In the medium team, Jude ran very well, only having a 5R for not entering a tunnel cleanly. Totally my fault from a handling perspective, but as the design from the wall to the tunnel is not something I can recall doing (in the pattern) before; hindsight about what I should have done is a great thing. Collectively the medium team have got to pick ourselves up and show that we can do great things together. Our aim is to win the agility part of the event.

But before we do the agility, all height categories have individual jumping rounds to do. For the mediums it will be our first crack at individual rounds. I think I am first to run and will go in with 100% effort. If we fail, we fail. We can’t afford to not go fast enough in the jumping therefore leaving too much to make up on the Agility round. Anyone who has watched continental agility competitions will know they only have one way of running – fast and furious.

To finish it seems pertinent to note a few things that an individual comes away with from the agility WC. The experience of competing on the top stage, the camaraderie of working together to achieve similar goals and relationships that will last way beyond the competition time frame.