October 6th-8th, 2006
Day Five
1st Day of Competition – Large, Medium and Small Dog Individual Jumping plus Large Team Standard competition
The 1st day of the 2006 11th annual FCI Agility World Championship has finally arrived. The AKC/USA Team arrived early to get settled in and line up for the traditional opening ceremony parade of countries. They wer all dressed in their red, white and blue team uniforms sponsored by Eukanuba and Clean Run Productions There were 34 countries brought in and introduce one by one this morning. Team USA had all of our cheering section filled and cheering them on as they entered the arena this morning. After a few introductions and a welcome speechs by Jen Paul Petitdidier, President of FCI agility and Philip Frohlich, President of the Organizing Committee a quintet of Swiss Alphorn players completed the Opening Ceremony.
The Large Dog Individual Jumping competition will start off the weekend. Judge Mia Laamanen has designed the course for today.
The USA dogs will lead of with Marcus Topps and Juice, then Gerry Brown and Sterling, Linda Mecklenburg and Stellar and finally Carrie Jones and Jive will run. Their runs are spread out in the run order starting with Marcus at #53, then Gerry at 105, Linda #137 and Carrie Jones #144. There are 166 Large dogs entered this morning in Jumping.
Large Dog Individual Jumping
The Large Dog Jumpers course was measured at 172 meters (188 Yards) with a course time of 39 seconds.
The AKC/USA Large Dog Individual was led of by 1st time team member Marcus Topps and his Border Collie, Juice. Marcus and Juice encountered problems in the opening sequence, which was a trouble area for many on this course. Juice took a wrong course over #2 while trying to get to the #3 jump. After that Marcus and Juice had a nice clean run, but a wrong course is a disqualifying fault at this event.
The next dog to the line for the USA was Gerry Brown and Sterling. Gerry and Sterling worked clean thru #5 where Sterling had a mild wide turn, but Gerry got her refocused on the course. They moved confidently through out the course to #12B where Sterling spun to the left and received a refusal call form the judge. Since this jump was part of an A-B-C flow on the course they needed to return to 12A to start the flow again. They did not and continued on to 12C. This decision became a disqualification call since they were now on what could be considered a wrong course because they did not return to 12A before proceeding on the course.
Veteran Team Member Linda Mecklenburg stepped to the line with Stellar and set Stellar up on a clean tight line from #1-2 and into #3. Linda and Stellar had one of the cleanest lines from #1-4 of the class. They continued flawlessly thru the course with nary a misplaced foot by dog or handler. They finished their run clean and with a time of 35.32 that with only 23 more runs to go put them into 9th place.
Our final dog for the Large Dog Jumping was new team member Carrie Jones with her Border Collie Jive. Carrie set almost a 180 turn from #1-2 then called Jive tightly between #2 and 3 for the flip back to #3. They then took a smooth line into the tunnel entrance at #4. Their run continued very fast and smooth until tunnel #11. As Jive was racing thru the tunnel Carrie slipped and fell down between #11 and jump #12. Jive did slow down to check her, but fortunately due to the location of the there was no refusal call. Carrie got up quickly and continued to steer Jive to a clean run for their first World Championship run.
The course’s opening sequence with the pull thru to #3 proved to be one of the most difficult portions of the course. Plus this opening design did not allow for any speed in the opening 4 obstacles due to its technical nature. Many dogs ran past #2 for the refusal and many after they came thru #2 & #3 went into the tunnel prior to taking the #3 jump for the disqualifying wrong course call. From there the course picked up speed which made the turn for #9 into the broad jump often a wide one. This caused quite a few dogs to miss the broad jump or jump it from the far side. Some dogs had run outs at tunnel #11 as their handlers pulled down to meet them at #12A. Most dogs did well thru the #12 flow obstacle and on to the weave poles. There were missed pole entries, but not as many as one would expect since the handlers either had to go up into the pocket and turn with the dog back into the poles or do an extremely hard push out that required the dogs to hook back into the poles. Many teams did successful push outs to the weave pole entrances. From there it was a fast exit sequence.
At the end of the Large Dog Jumping Class Linda Mecklenburg and Stellar held their #9 finish out of the 166 dogs entered. Carrie Jones finished 47th overall due to her .50 time fault. Course time was 39 seconds and she finished in 39.50 with her fall.
A total of 42 dogs went clean on the course out of 165 competing. The 1st place dog was from Denmark, a Border Collie named Simic being run by Sarah Lorentzen.
Next we will watch the Medium Dogs compete on a course designed by Judge Peter Kindle.
Full results can be viewed at http://www.agility-wc2006.com/index.htm
Medium Dog Individual Jumping
Next the Medium Dogs stepped to the line for their 1st challenge of the weekend. Judge Peter Kindle laid out a speed course for the Medium Dogs this afternoon. Handlers could very quickly get their dogs up to full speed on this course in the opening sequence. The hardest piece was from #6-#7 when viewed on the course map, but once it was set there was plenty of room to pull dogs to the left between the 2 jumps and set a straight line over #7 into the #8 jump. The combination at #16 was easily done at full speed with a smooth slice jump over #16B. Then it was a fast run to the finish line. The course distance was 164 meters (179 yards) and 39 seconds for SCT.
We had 2 team members competing in Medium Dog Jumping today, Jennifer Crank and Karen Holik. They ran back to back at #53 & #54.
Jennifer Crank and Guess came to the line first. Guess waited for Jennifer’s call over jump #1 and then they never slowed down or looked back. 34.09 seconds later they were clean and across the finish line. The course time was 39 seconds. This placed Jennifer and Guess 7th overall with 11 dogs to still run.
With the USA crowd still on their feet cheering for Jennifer and Guess they stayed on their feet cheering for Karen Holik and Sizzle who were next to the start. Sizzle excitedly bounced his way to his starting position. He settled in and waited for Joan’s signal that he could start. Sizzle tore off the line to get running the course with Karen. They both put in a fast solid run that gave the USA supporters more to cheer for. Sizzle and Karen crossed the line at 35.19 with no faults.
After all the dogs had run Jennifer and Guess finished in 9th out of 67 teams. Karen and Sizzle finished 16th overall. The winner of the class was World Champion Silvia Trkman with her Pyrenean Sheepdog, Simply the Best who posted a 32.04 time.
Small Dog Individual Jumping
Our USA section in the arena looks like one large cheer leading squad in our matching AKC/USA World Team matching shirts. Thanks goes to Clean Run Productions who supplied them to all supporters who traveled with the team here to Basel, Switzerland. It has been a long but exciting day here at St. Jakob’s stadium.
The next course set was for the Small Dog Individual Jumping. It was also designed by Judge Peter Kindle and is similar in style to the Medium Dog course. The course measured 153 meters (167 yards) and SCT is 36 seconds. Team Members Barb Davis, Melanie Del Villaggio and Dee Anna Gamel will run this course.
Barb Davis lead out for our group. Barb is a veteran team member, but her canine partner Rock-It is new to the World Team experience. Rock-It soon proved he was up to the task. This course was a fast one with a few run out planes that needed some attention to them and a few tempting off courses for fast wider running dogs. None of this tricked Rock-It due to Barb’s smooth handling of the course and his attention to her. They finished the course clean with a time of 34.15.
Melanie Del Villaggio and Dara had the next opportunity to run the course for the USA. They were working smoothly on the course until Dara found the off course option of #16 while on her way from #7 to the chute at #8. One dog later Dee Anna Gamel and Kelsi got to try their hand at this course. They also were working very well together until a wrong course option caught Kelsi’s eye. On their turn from #10 to #11, Kelsi turned a bit wide and found the opening of tunnel #17 much to her liking.
Barb Davis placed 19th in this round with her time of 34.15. The winner was Angelina Katutis with her Shetland Sheepdog with a course time of 30.82 from Russia.
The Small and Medium dogs are done running for the day. The last event of the day is the Large Dog Team Standard competition which will start at about 6:15pm.
Large Team Standard Competition
At 6:20 pm the Large Dog team competition started. All of the teams have been here since at least 7 am this morning so it has been an 11 hour day at the arena so far.
Judge Lia Maamanen has presented a course that starts with a 270 in the opening but very quickly opens up and then combines speed and a few strong obstacle discrimination areas on the course. The course measured 170 meters (186 yards) and SCT is 43 seconds.
Our Large Dog Team consists of Marcus Topps and Juice, Linda Mecklenburg and Stellar, and Carrie Jones with Jive. Our team is running 7th so it gives us a chance to see how the course is running. The surface is a bit slippery for both dogs & handlers, but is had a good padding under it and the dogs have adjusted to it over the day.
Linda Mecklenburg and Stellar lead off for Team USA. Stellar started very strong, but had a very rare weave pole fault at about pole #4 – this gave the USA 5 faults. The rest of their run was clean.
Our next dog was Carrie Jones with Jive. Jive and Carrie had 5 faults called when Jive stepped on the broad jump as she went over it. This brought the USA fault total to 10 faults.
Our anchor team soon showed why they were running anchor. Marcus Topps and Juice worked through the course in a fast and businesslike manner. In the end they ran a clear round and that left the USA with 10 faults and 112.23 in course time. At this time the USA is in 5th place over all. There are 32 Large Dog teams entered and there are still 23 teams to run. This round is the 1st round of the Team competition. The Jumping round will be run tomorrow. After the completion of the Jumping course the final team placements are determined.
Tomorrow we will run in Small Team Standard, Medium Team Standard, Small Team Jumping, Medium Team Jumping and Large Team Jumping.
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