For the Muntenia area, the Prahova Pigeon Association is the one that coordinates, for the first time, the organization of the National Kharkov stage, a competition that took place on July 18th. The distances were worthy of a real extreme long distance stage, the first fanciers on the flight direction having over 900 aerial km. Moreover, it reached distances of over a thousand km, and the difficulty given by the large number of km that the pigeons had to fly was doubled by an important participation. The pigeons ranking competition was won by Adrian Ioniță from Prahova, and for fanciers, the first place was won by Marius Rudaru, member of the Bucharest Pigeon Association. The number of pigeons engaged in the National Kharkov competition, organized by the Prahova Pigeon Association, was 4,955. Also, 587 fanciers from the associations Brăila, Buzău, Ialomița, Călărași, Bucharest, Ilfov, Argeș, Buzău, Dâmbovița, Giurgiu and Prahova participated. The weather allowed the pigeons to be released as early as the first hour of the morning (05:02), so the first pigeons started to arrive quite early, after almost 12 hours of flight.

A huge victory fror Adrian Ioniță (PH)
For the fancier Adrian Ioniță, from the Prahova Pigeon Association, this year’s Kharkov National competition will be an unforgettable one. The reason is easy to guess: thanks to the hen RO-18-0477317, Adrian Ioniță wins the 1st place, against 4,955 pigeons. Competing in the natural method, the hen finished the 951 km race at 16:57:06, flying at an average speed of 1,330 m / min. Although she won a classic marathon stage, we must remember that the hen comes, on her father’s line, from speed pigeons. “I am passionate about pigeons since I was a child, I have been competing for many years, but I don’t have a certain category that I follow. I compete the pigeons using natural method, the winning hen having 10 days old eggs in the basketing day. She participated in the youngsters competitions in 2018, and at the age of one I competed a little easier, in order to let her mature and later compete in the marathon. On the father’s line, the hen comes from Van de Poel pigeons, and on the mother’s line, we can find pigeons from Cosmin Olteanu, on the line of Van de Pasch, Van Dyck and Janssen. During the season we used the mixtures for the competition produced by Versele Laga, and in order to prepare the pigeons for this competition, we took them to several trainings from a distance of 50 km ”, said Adrian Ioniță.

In fanciers competition, the first place was won by Marius Rudaru from Bucharest
The competition at this stage was fierce for fanciers as well. As mentioned above, 587 pigeon fanciers from 11 counties participated, which meant a fairly wide geographical range. But, among them, Marius Rudaru from Bucharest did the best, the one who managed to win the first place of the ranking, with a coefficient of 9.89 penalty points. A team of 12 widowed cocks was engaged in this competition, and eight of them managed to rank. The result achieved by Marius Rudaru was possible due to the fact that the first two pigeons that arrived in his loft, at 18:07:31 and 18:09:55, were among the five nominated for the team, and the ranking on the 22nd place 27 was good enough to accumulate the best score in fanciers competition. Last but not least, we specify that the distance that Marius Rudaru’s pigeons had to fly was 999 km. “I only compete with widowed cocks, because time does not allow me to take care of both sexes as well. The two cocks are experienced pigeons, which competed very well in the past seasons. Moreover, they are the same pigeons with which I made the team in the last marathon stage of our association, where we won the 1st place in the fanciers competition. The pigeons train only in the morning, and on the weekend I try to train them a few times by car, and when they arrive home, their hens are waiting for them in the compartments “, said Marius Rudaru. From the point of view of the county rankings, even if fanciers from 11 associations participated, not all of them met the minimum number of pigeons and faniers necessary to achieve the classification. The only ones that exceeded the required numbers were the associations Buzău, Dâmbovița, Prahova and Bucharest. From Buzau, 53 fanciers participated in the Kharkov National, and the number of employed pigeons was 504. The 1st county place for pigeons and fanciers was won by Petrică Muscalu. From Dâmbovița, 107 fanciers participated and 1,080 pigeons. Daniel Ilie won the 1st county place in pigeons, and Team T. won, at the county level, in the fanciers’ ranking. From Prahova, there were 159 participants and 942 pigeons. Adrian Ioniță, the winner of the stage, is, implicitly, also the winner of the 1st place in the county, and Alin Caprita won in the fanciers competition. Last but not least, from Bucharest, 159 fanciers took part in the National Kharkov stage, and the number of pigeons employed was 1,548. Here, the 1st place for pigeons was won by the tandem Marcu M. & Stancu S., who took second place in the launch.