Verbano Challenge 2021: Successful first edition of the tournament

Last weekend the first edition of the Verbano Agility Challenge took place in Italy. In the final on Sunday afternoon, Alberto Marmo, Stephanie Hering and Nina Gregl prevailed against strong competitors. Not least because of the current tournament situation with only a few events in autumn.

With the victory of Alberto Marmo and his partner Anna Ivanova, there was a small family reunification in the Small competition. With 2.21 seconds, the gap between the Italian with Terrier Dhitta and the Russian with Sheltie Flip was quite clear. Third place went to Maurizio Grandi with Fury from Italy. The latter, however, with a refusal. Thus Alberto Marmo and Anna Ivanova remained the only two who completed Rene Blank’s course from Germany without faults.

Small (full results)
Alberto Marmo with Dhitta
Anna Ivanova with Flip
Maurizio Grandi with Fury

In the Medium competition, too, the teams struggled with the final course and probably the final atmosphere. Not so the two Germans Stephanie Hering and Nicole Kelpen. With a better ending for Stephanie Hering and Luk. The two completed the course 0.77 seconds faster than Nicole Kelpen and Poke. The German-speaking podium was completed with Helmut Paulik and Kiwi from Austria. Nina Gregl, one of the favorites who was also in the final after strong runs on the other days, completed the run with 2 faults and one refusal and therefore had no chances in the fight for the title.

Medium (full results)
Stephanie Hering with Luk
Nicole Kelpen with Poke
Helmut Paulik with Kiwi

Instead of this, the Croatian Nina Gregl and Zaelie won the Large competition. Literally with a gap of 1.30 seconds on the German Cathrin Steck and Border Collie Liv. Just behind them is the 2018 world champion Nicola Giraudi with Eira. While only a handful of teams failed to make mistakes in the Small and Medium dogs, it looked very different on Tamas Traj’s final course. Altogether there were 9 clean runs out of 33 starters. One team out of it was Iwona Golab and Applause, who, however, had to be satisfied with 7th place in the end.

Large (full results)
Nina Gregl with Zaelie
Cathrin Steck with Liv
Nicola Giraudi with Eira