Extreme Ace is undoubtedly the spearhead of the Marathon categories, being a very difficult test especially for yearlings who have to cover very long distances from a young age and with very little flying experience. Nevertheless, from year to year, more and more yearlings manage to meet the scale of this norm, surprising with the strength and intelligence they show.

Petru Crețu

The national 1st place in the Extreme Ace Yearlings category was won this season by the pigeon with the series 1102027-2021, which belongs to Petru Crețu, from Bădeuți, Suceava county, with a total of 24.80 penalty points and 3,030 ranked kilometers . “The cock with the series 1102027-2021, «Extrem Power», manages to occupy the first position in the national ranking of the Queen Extreme Ace Yearlings category, where he obtained a score of 24.80 points in the three extreme stages. As for origins, the father of the champion is brought from the German pigeon fancier Menne und Tochter, being inbreed with Bartholomäus (4 stages of Barcelona – 1 national Barcelona 3 years rankings), purchased in 2020 from an auction site. His mother was purchased from the Solovăstru Family from Suceava, being a daughter of the best fanciers, the basic couple of the breeding loft, which produced several top national pigeons, provincial and county products, siblings with her managing to reach the national podium at the National Ace category in 2014 and 2018. “Extrem Power” was competed on natural method all season, from the first to the last stage, being specially prepared for Marathon races. In fact, the Marathon and the Extreme Marathon are the categories that I have always liked, categories in which I have competed with great love and for which I have invested a lot of passion. This season I started with a batch of 28 pigeons, they were played using natural method, looking to make them the best nesting positions for the Extreme Marathon stages. Even though I started competing in F.R.S.C since 2010, where I achieved top national results since the first year, and in U.F.C.R since 2014, I can say that this season was by far the one that brought me the most greater satisfactions and fulfillments on the pigeon fancier level. The second stage of the Extreme Marathon, Madona National, where I had a distance of 1,046 kilometers, was the stage of my dreams, managing to have three pigeons arrived in the first 25 birds in the general rankings of the stage, out of 14,484 pigeons engaged (11th place , which was occupied by «Extrem Power», the 16th place and the 25th place on the entire release), and following these fantastic arrivals we also obtained the 1st place in the Fanciers category, out of a number of 999 participating fanciers. This trophy represents the greatest satisfaction for me as a pigeon fancier, the greatest achievement and probably represents the dream of any Extreme Marathon race enthusiast”, said Petru Crețu.

Relu Iurieti

The title of national vice-champion of this category is obtained by the famous Moldovan pigeon fancier Relu Iurieti, from Botoșani county, through the young and ambitious hen with the series 0100076-2021, who recorded a score of 37.31 penalty points and 3,092 kilometers ranked in the three extreme steps necessary to fulfill this norm. “Most of all I like to compete in the Marathon and Extreme Marathon flights, where I play successfully almost every year. The origin of my pigeons is the old Jan Aarden pigeons, with which I have been working since my pigeon-loving beginnings. After a rigorous selection, I managed to create a line of pigeons that can successfully compete in Long Distance, Marathon and Extreme Marathon competitions. Over time, these birds have rewarded me with beautiful results, both for me and for many other fanciers who have purchased products of these pigeons from my loft. In the last two years I have also introduced a few pigeons for the Long distance category in the breeding compartment, to improve the speed, but with them I follow the same principle of selection, that is, a very hard principle, but also a very healthy one. I compete using widowhood method, from the first stage of the Marathon to the end of the championship. Throughout my pigeon fancier career I have reached the national podium several times, and the national trophies won, as well as the references of my birds in other loftd, confirm the seriousness of the work done and my fulfillment as a pigeon fancier. I believe that with Marathon pigeons you don’t have to intervene too much in their lives, and if they have good health and a good genetic background, it’s impossible not to achieve peak performance”, concluded Relu Iureti, a fancier with a career of over two years decades.

Liviu Perijoc

The national podium of the Extreme Ace Yearlings category is completed by another hen who managed, in the three Extreme stages, to cover a distance of 3,101 kilometers and accumulate a total of 42.87 penalty points. This phenomenal yearling has the series 2020097-2021 and belongs to Liviu Perijoc, a famous pigeon fancier from the town of Moara, Suceava county. “Considering the fact that in the last five years we have changed the location of the loft several times, always competing with young pigeons, we have decided that, in the 2022 season, young pigeons will only participate in the Marathon stages. Because at the first stage of the Jonawa Marathon, a very difficult stage, where the weather conditions were unfavorable, the revelation of my loft this season, the hen with the series 2020097-2021, named «New Queen», arrived in the loft at midnight , at 11:04 p.m., I made the decision to form a team of yearlings, led by her, to compete in the Extreme Marathon stages. Despite being quite young, having been hatched in the summer, competing with one old, not moulted chick feather, “New Queen” performed very well in the three Extreme Marathon stages, managing to finish second on the loft each time, achieving finally this wonderful place on the national podium in the Extreme Ace Yearlings category. This is largely due to the very good origins of the pigeon, her father being a Dutch male from the Battenburg v.d. lofts. Merwe, with the series 1779167-2020, descended from three Barcelona winners: Lloyd, New Laureat, The Special One. In addition to these three phenomenal pigeons, Marseille Queen is also found in her pedigree.
The mother of the champion is the hen with the series 533008-2019, she is a good flyer, with very good rankings at the age of one year at the Extreme Marathon, Madona and Tartu stages. As for her origins, she is descended from Matador, the pigeon that won 2nd place at the International Barcelona in 2013 for pigeon fancier Rufin van Buyl, and from the famous Marseille Queen, by Batenburg v.d. Merwe. The qualities of these pigeons for this category are also strengthened by the results of the hens that occupy the 6th and 21st places nationally Extrem Ace Yearlings 2022, they are cousins from the mother’s side with «New Queen». This trophy confirms that in the past things have been done well and reinforces the idea that I am on the right track, the 2022 season being considered a successful one due to the fact that I achieved the norms with good and very good scores in the categories of Extreme Ace Old birds, Extreme Ace Yearlings and Extreme Fanciers. And this in the county with perhaps the biggest competition in Moldova, a county within the radius of which approximately 700 fanciers are active, many of them used to the national podiums”, said Liviu Perijoc.

The trophies from Old birds all go to Neamț

Costel Lupoi

If the podium of the Extrem Ace Yearlings category was dominated by the pigeons of pigeon fanciers from Suceava and Botoșani counties, the podium of the Extreme Ace Old birds category is entirely occupied by pigeon fanciers from Neamț county. And to make things even more interesting, it must be said that all the birds on the national podium were hens. Thus, in first place we find the hen with the series 0521758-2020, who managed to win the title of national champion in the Extreme Ace Old birds 2022 category with a norm achieved with 3,211 ranked kilometers and an accumulated total of 10.71 penalty points. She belongs to the pigeon fancier team Lupoi + Roman, formed by Costel Lupoi and Ion Roman, from the town of Piatra Neamț, Neamț county. “Her father is a cock from the loft of Guy Baerts, inbred on “Euro Diamond”, and her mother is reproduced from a inbred on the famous “61”, which belongs to Dinu Moise. This sire was bred by the Gagea brothers, who was paired to the hen that took the 5th place national Long distance Ace Palmares. This was bred in my loft in 2013, from a combination of Devos and Florizoone pigeons. Champion at the age of 1, as a yearling, she ranked eight races, three of which were Marathons, fulfilling the norm at Marathon Ace Yearlings. From her grandmother’s line, i.e. the Devos hen, quality birds are born year after year, with notable results at the Marathon category. I prepare the flight batch by the natural method throughout the season. I put the greatest emphasis on the recovery of the pigeons after the first stage of the Marathon. My flight lot consists of about 70 birds, old birds and yearlings, the yearlings being competed in the Marathon stages. This year, at the end of the season, around 55 pigeons remained in the loft. Birds that do not rank even one race with a good score will be removed from the flight group. I consider the 2022 season a very good one for me because I achieved very good results at the county level, such as: 1st place in the Extreme Old birds county level, 2nd place in the Marathon Ace Palmares county level, 2nd place in the Extreme Palmares county or 3rd place in the Extreme Marathon Fancier category county level, but above all thanks the national title won in the Extrem Ace Old birds category, which crowned 30 years of work in the pigeon sport”, explained Costel Roman.

Romeo Turluianu

The Turluianu family, from the town of Târgu Neamț, Neamț county, climbs to the 2nd national place in the Extreme Ace Old birds category, with the hen with the series 0594966-2020, which accumulated, in the three stages of Extreme races, 14.96 penalty points and 3,100 kilometers ranked “In my case, pigeon-holing is not a tradition handed down from father to son, as in most cases, but a passion discovered in childhood. I was around 10 years old when I found an injured racing pigeon and then I showed interest in getting it to fly again, but I was left with the image of him leaving and the desire to have my own pigeons. I found myself in these beautiful birds and ended up fulfilling my desire and dream at the age of 17 to have my first pigeon loft, which I built in the attic of a garage, from where I competed with a batch of maximum 16 birds per season. The year 2012 was the year of a new beginning, flying from the new loft under the name Familia Turluianu. Here I had the opportunity to organize my activity as I wanted, and the results began to appear in a short time. I have always competed «naturally», because I believe that the motivation of the pigeons is essential in making them return to the nest as soon as possible. This season, 2022, was the first in which I focused only on the Marathon and Extreme Marathon stages, being in the past a flyer who loved the Long distance category very much. We approached the Marathon stages with a batch of only 16 pigeons, and at the Augustow Marathon we achieved 3rd and 4th place out of 13,107 pigeons embarked for this flight and 2nd place in the Fanciers category out of 510 participating fanciers. For the Extreme stages, we had a team made up of 11 flyers, among them the hen with the series 594966-2020 stands out. She had very good, consistent arrivals, which allowed her to take the 2nd national Extreme Ace Old birds in the end. The champion comes from a family of good fliers, the grandfather on the mother’s line being the 1st national Marathon Ace 3 years rankings in 2016, the 3rd national Maraton Ace in 2015 and the 3rd national Marathon 2 years rankings in 2015, from the breeding of my good friend Lucian Pope. The motivation of the hen was done in the first two stages in the position of eggs, and in the third race of the Extreme Marathon she was competed on 10-day-old chicks. I am happy with this result because it crowns my work, motivates me and gives me hope that it can be even better. These achievements would not have been possible without the unconditional support of my wife, which is why I thank her because she always supported me in difficult moments and convinced me not to give up the carrier pigeons” Romeo Turluianu testified.

Sebastian Bumbea

The third national Extreme Ace Old birds place also goes to the locality of Târgu Neamț, to the pigeon fancier Sebastian Bumbea, thanks to his hen with the series 0685012-2019, which obtained a score of 19.05 points and 3,092 kilometers ranked in the three stages of Extreme. “Occupying the 3rd national place of this category is not the only feat of my hen with the series 0685012-2019. At the Birzai National 2022 stage, he took the 1st place in the county, with a very spectacular finish at night, at 23:34:21, after a race of 1,063 kilometers. These results are not accidental, the hen comes from a family of top flyers. Her father comes from the pigeons of the Turluianu + Pavel team, having as origins pigeons from Nouwen Paesen, and her mother is from Liviu Paval, from his pigeons with Van der Wegen blood. My passion is Marathon races, the Extreme Marathon being the icing on the cake for me. This year we started the season with 35 riders, in the end remaining with 15, the team for the Extreme stages being made up of ten racers. The preparation method was natural, the champion starting at the first stage of Extreme on 6-day-old eggs, at the second stage on 15-day-old eggs, and at the last stage she was basketed from 10-day-old chicks. This national trophy is a great honor for me and gives me the necessary motivation to wish for other top national results in the future”, Sebastian Bumbea told us.