When a plan comes together





This years FCI World Championships was another fantastic competition. I'm planning on writing a couple of blogs taken from my notes while there; I may even get a couple of guest bloggers to contribute too.

For this first blog I'd like to acknowledge the hard work, dedication and commitment made by so many people who helped get the team to Spain and of course to the team members themselves who were brilliant.

I've written many times about the work that goes on behind the scenes in Agility Team GB, and it's great when our plans come together like it did in Spain. Yes it was a shame that we didn't bring home any medals. However there were many positive experiences and a lot of progress made by the team again this year.

Agility Team GB highlights from the championships include:

From the team competition:
    • Small team - 20th
    • Medium team - 7th
    • Large team - 10th
From the individual competition:
    • Small - Lucy & Fling 40th
    • Medium - Christine & Zev 19th, Tash & Dizzy 13th
    • Large - Jess & Cara 5th (highest placed team member)
Once again the international judges set up some great courses. They were fast, flowing, cleverly designed and testing; some were very testing! The medium team agility and the large individual agility were two of the toughest courses I've seen at these championships. 

There were some shocks too. Some of the favourites didn't win, some of the outsiders did incredibly well. I'm sure everyone went home feeling inspired and motivated to go back next year for another fix. There really is no other championships or agility competition that compares to the atmosphere of the FCI World Championships.

Highlights for me include
  • No injuries or illnesses to any of our dogs or handlers;
  • All our travel arrangements went to plan. Everyone arrived where they needed to be on time and safely;
  • All the performance distractions that existed in previous years have been resolved;
  • Our small and medium teams both improved their performance from 2015;
  • The team atmosphere, partnerships, support for each other and general togetherness, was fantastic. I felt this was a very close knit team.
Lowlights
  • Not bringing any medals home;
  • The large individual agility course was possibly too hard (IMO); only 12 clear rounds from over 100 competitors.
Over the next few weeks I have reports to prepare, we have a 2017 Planning Day later this month and then 2017 squad selection. The fun starts again.

I'm hosting a twitter chat on Monday 3rd October and then a Facebook Q&A on the 17th November. This is an opportunity for you to ask any questions you like about Agility Team GB and the Coaching Team and I will attempt to answer them. 

For the twitter chat use the agilityteamgb hash tag, type away and one of us will come back to you.  






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