AWC 2023: Germany secured its first medal, but had to tremble in the end

In the end it was really tight for Germany. After looking unbeatable yesterday, things got a little more hectic today. Stefanie Simson and Silas Boogk ran two confident runs at the beginning. But then Max Sprinz caused anxious moments for the German team with a mistake at the dogwalk. Tobias then converted the penalty, so to speak. Even he seemed clearly relieved after the winning run. In an interview with working-dog.com after the run, Tobias Wüst described the moment when Max Sprinz made the mistake. He also planned the S-variant on the left side after the dogwalk. Same variation as Max Sprinz and Oleksandra Ivaschenko. Both with a mistake there. Even she and Max Sprinz usually have hardly any dogwalk problems. So Tobias thought about whether he should switch sides or not during the run.

Belgium comes second behind Germany. The team around Sharon Debruyne, Veronique Leers, Aline Tricot and Andrea Prezzi started with the sixth from last starting number. A good starting position, but anything but a sure medal. Except Andrea Prezzi, the team remained clean. In terms of time, however, they were 12 seconds behind the Norwegians, who were leaders in the Agility run. The Norwegians should remain at the top until the end. But after the following teams failed to finish their runs, the medal was quickly secured for Belgium. The only question was which one it should be. Slovenia, in third place after the first run, was eliminated from the medal race with a disqualification by Mark Herfert and an fault by Zvonko Valenčak.

It was a similar story for the second-to-last team from Slovakia. Pavol Vakonič got off to a successful start with Meryl. Monika Blaško also followed up successfully. Simona Filová with Parson Russel Terrier made each a fault at the dogwalk and the seesaw. The last run by Pavol Vakonič and Siri decided on a medal for Slovakia. Dreams were buried midway through the course when Siri took a jump from the wrong side. A place where there were hardly any other disqualifications. This also secured Hungary the bronze medal. They started a huge catch up in the Agility run. In general the most of the disqualifications came at the very end in a really great and exciting course by Petra Vyplelová. The tunnel exit for the final jump pointed to a completely different jump. A great idea from Petra, which caused a few surprises in this finale.

Small Team (full Results)
Germany (T. Wüst – Dörte, S. Simson – Bibi, S. Boogk – Gadget, M. Sprinz – Make)
Belgium (V. Leers – Moose, A. Tricot – Ozone, S. Debruyne – Dino, A. Prezzi – Zoemm)
Hungary (Naggyőr D. – Welle, Favari C. – Jum, Péter K. – Nico, Novák R. – Blue)