Starting with the 2022 season, the competition proposed by the new form of organization of pigeon fancier at national level, the Union of Pigeon Fanciers of Romania (UFCR), is characterized by substantial changes for each distance category. In the next period, in an attempt to clarify the new Pigeon Regulation, we will publish a series of articles in order to specify and detail the most important changes, accompanied by the necessary explanations. Thus, today we propose you to see what the Short distance and Middle distance categories will consist of, starting with next season.

First of all, as a result of a survey conducted at national level, the leadership of the Union of Pigeon Fanceirs in Romania validated the desire of Romanian pigeon fanciers to clearly separate the distance categories for the norms on Short distance and Middle distance categories. On briefly, we are now discussing stages organized punctually for one or the other category, thus disappearing the races in the “Short distance – Middle distance” category. Starting with the next season, the races with a distance between 100 and 350 km will be considered only Short distance races, and those with a distance of 350-500 km, only Middle distance stages.

The competition plan will include 8 stages of Short distance and 7 of Middle distance

There are also changes in the number of stages for the first two distance categories. Thus, for the Short distance category, the county branches will be able to organize a maximum of eight races, and for Middle distance, a maximum of seven. “For the Short distance and Middle distance categories, we chose to propose the Belgian model to our pigeon fanciers. As it is known, in Belgium, pigeon fanciers specialize in certain categories, which we want to facilitate in Romania as well. We hope that this will improve the quality of fanciers and pigeons, because it is much more difficult to impose yourself in a competition in which all pigeon fanciers have the same goal and prepare the pigeons to win. For the same reason, we will give the branches the opportunity to organize several competition plans for the Short distance category, in order to eliminate the inequities generated by the relief, the geographical arrangement or the distances between the clubs. The desire is to reach a very strong competition, but fair in the same time, and to offer the possibility to all participants to win the first places on the launch. For the Middle distance category, only one competition plan can be organized “, explained Florin Gătejescu, the new president of the National Sports Commission.

Two new categories: Short distance and Middle distance Ace

Out of the same desire, to have a very strong competition, it was decided to set up two new categories. These are Short distance Ace and Middle distance Ace, as the name suggests, can only be met with maximum of rankings. Thus, the “aces” of the Short distance category must classify all eight races in this distance category contained in the flight plan. The rule also applies to the Middle distance, except that in this category we are talking about seven races. The Speed Ace category has also been removed.

The norms For Fanciers Short distance and Fanciers Middle distance will be achieved only with the maximum of ranked stages

For the section dedicated to fanciers, the first two categories of distance become even more difficult. For the Fanciers Short distance norm, pigeon fanciers have to achieve the team for all eight races of the season, and not just in five of them, as it was before. At Fanciers Middle distance, the scores from all seven races will be taken into account. In other words, pigeon fanciers who want to meet the nine norms must perform with no errors, because they will not have any “reserve” race. “We wanted to capitalize on the categories of Fanciers Short distance and Fanciers Middle distance, which is why we decided that the norms of the two categories should become more difficult to meet. We considered that this is the only way to be able to highlight very constant fanciers, both during a single season and in the case of records. Being necessary the scores from all the stages, the pigeon fanciers will have to be very careful all season, and the stages will be of the same interest regardless of whether we are talking about the beginning or the end of the season. We are aware that there will be county branches in which it may not be possible to organize all the races for Short distance and Middle distance, but this situation will be a beneficial one, the competition thus becoming even stronger “, added Florin Gătejescu (photo).

We specify that these criteria apply only for the National Championship, the criteria for participation in the Pigeon Olympics remaining the same as before.