We can clearly say that this year’s European Cup was a real success for the Romanian fanciers. Targeting the fanciers from Central and Eastern Europe, at the European Cup participated fanciers from countries with a great tradition in racing pigeons sport such as Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia or Croatia. The participants in our country have not only made an appearance there. They returned home with lots of prizes, being the main candidates for Polish fanciers, in almost all of the categories. In fact, this also can be seen in the countries ranking, where Romania is in second position, after Poland.

Today we will continue to present the Romanian fanciers who participated in the European Cup, many of them being European trophy winners. The next distance category, compared to the first three presented in the previous material, was Category D (All-round). As suggested, Category D is similar to All-round Palmares category from our national championship, with the mention that 11 races were required to participate in the European Cup for short distance, coming from middle distance and long distance categories. The best ranked pigeon in Romania in this category was coming from fancier Daniel Pîslă from Reșița, the national vice champion of Romania at All-round Palmares, pigeon that occupied the 7th place in the European exhibition. The next pigeon from our country, competed by Mihai Cocoș from Buzău, winner of 3rd place National All-round Palmares, ranked 14th, followed by Romi Pop’s pigeon from Maramureș, 4th place National in the Romanian championship in the same category, ranked 15th.

Team Despinoiu+Alexandru, 1st European place in Category F (Young birds)
In the category dedicated to young birds, the best pigeon in the European Cup was from team Despinoiu + Alexandru from Prahova. The Olympic norm realized by the young hen RO-19-0980663 is a historical one, with the total score from the three calculated stages of only 0.60 penalty points. This could be possible by winning the 1st place of over 5,000 young birds in all the three stages required for this norm. The Olympic score is calculated by dividing a maximum of 5,000 pigeons / stage (the place in the ranking multiplied by 1000, and the result is divided by the number of pigeons, a maximum of 5,000), even if there were more birds participating, the score of this hen may never be touched, at least according to the present regulation. For the F category, the well-known prahovan fancier Cosmin Olteanu occupied positions 4 and 7, very close to the podium positions.

A new category, a new European trophy
A new category where we successfully participated in was Category G, for yearlings who managed to score five races over 95 km. From Romania participated yearlings from the national podium of the similar category in our championship. The best ranked was Ionuț Șușelea from Mehedinti, who achieved a true performance in the 2019 season, winning three national titles. The same cock from his loft, RO-18- 9007762, occupied the second position of the European Cup podium, obtaining the European Vice Champion trophy. In the fourth place of the ranking was a pigeon also from Romania, competed by the Popa + Marin team in Dâmbovița and in the seventh place was another pigeon owned by Ionuț Șușelea.

Ionuț Voicu wins the European 3rd place in Category I (Long distance)
Another important European trophy was won by Ionuț Voicu from Giurgiu, occupant of the 3rd place in category I. Three stages over 475 km were needed for this, what in the national championship of Romania means Long distance category. Ionuț Voicu’s pigeon, RO-15- 0206681, national champion of Romania in the category Old birds Long distance, was very close to an even better place. He was differentiated by only 0.429 points from the pigeon on the second place and by 0.600 points from the pigeon on the first place. In the next position came also a Romanian fancier, Costin Brezoi from Olt, and Romanian fancier can be found also in the seventh position, Sorin Vancea from Hunedoara.

Not least, must be remembered and appreciated the performance of the Romanian pigeons from the other remaining categories, Category E (Extreme Long distance) and Category H. At the first of these two, category dedicated to marathon competitions, Romania was represented by the Bodor Family from Iasi, in 6th place, and Iulian Mălinche from Brăila, coming 9th, and Marian Cuziac from Suceava, in 10th position. The Category H, where ranking six races over 285 km was required, our country was represented by Constantin Stoica from Valcea, team Simion Emil & Stelian Dumitran from Bucharest and Cătălin Sandu from Ilfov, fanciers who came 13th, 14th and 15th in the European ranking.