At the end of last week, for the first time in the world, Romania hosted in Budapest the final selection for the designation of Olympic champions in the category of standard, old birds and youngsters. This exceptional pigeon fancier event, a preamble to this year’s Pigeon Olympics in Oradea, was proposed on the agenda of the International Pigeon Federation (FCI) by the National Federation of Romanian Pigeon Fanciers (FNCPR) at the last FCI congress.

Our federation has asked the FCI to take action in February in Budapest because such an event can only be held during the winter, immediately after the pigeons hatch, and the location was chosen given the geographical position and sanitary rules imposed by COVID 19 pandemic, much more permissive in Hungary than in Romania. In addition, Hungarian colleagues promised and provided the organizers with the technical support needed for very advanced data processing.
“We thank the Hungarian federation for its involvement and effort in the organization, the German federation for the technical support provided in the calculation and centralization of the results and, last but not least, the 15 international referees present at this competition,” said Daniel Pop. vice-president-head of the National Corps of Arbitrators of the Union of Pigeon Federation of Romania (UFCR).
Drawing a line and analyzing the results obtained by Romanian pigeon fanciers, Daniel Pop considers that “they are not exceptional, but close to this qualifier”. In the youngsters category, the fancier Daniel Arion from Alba County managed two top rankings, 4th place and 6th place in cocks category, tied for points with 4th place, in hens, these results bringing Romania 5th place by nations, the best ranking in the last 10 years of competition. “Daniel Arion is already a well-known name! In addition to the good places obtained this year, let us also mention the fact that in Brno, in 2019, he won an excellent 3rd place “, explained Daniel Pop.
Regarding the results in old birds rankings, things were much more complicated here, the quality of the Romanian birds placing us somewhere at the end of the first third of the ranking. “Unfortunately, due to the pandemic situation in our country, the selection area was very small this year, in Brasov being judged only 15 hens and 11 cock”, Daniel Pop explained the weaker results in this category. The 25th place for hens and the 33rd place for cock were the best Romanian rankings, both pigeons belonging to the Bucevski Family from Timiş County, at their first participation in such a competition.
Olympic champions were named Jesel Cingel from Slovakia, in old birds cocks, in a very fierce competition, and in old bird hens the Hungarian Agoston Viglidan won. In the countries ranking of old birds category, Poland took first place, followed by Slovakia and Germany, while Romania ranked 12th. In yearlings, the first three places were occupied, in order, by Germany, Poland and the Czech Republic, and Romania he scored much better, finishing the competition in 5th place. Last week’s deserving winners will be able to be seen at the August Olympic exhibition in Oradea “, concluded Daniel Pop.