Vantaa, Finland
Will and Rudi represent Team GB and win Gold!
Huge thanks to Gavin Lyon for this brilliant montage of the Team GB experience at the JOAWC 2022 – for those that were there it still evokes all sorts of memories and emotions,
The Journey
Will and Rudi had a long and exciting journey just to get to the Championship venue:
Day 1 Cornwall to Folkestone . Overnight stay in Kent
Day 2 Eurotunnel to France, then drive through France, Belgium, Netherlands, Germany ferry to Denmark. Overnight stay in Maribo, Denmark
Day 3 Denmark to Sweden (with a stop off in Copenhagen). Overnight ferry from Sweden to Finland.
Day 4 Two hour drive from ferry to the team hotel in Vantaa where Will met up with his GB team mates.
The Preparation
Unofficial team training – a two hour session to get the dogs and handlers running again and to try out the equipment to be used at the tournament.
Official team training – held at the venue the day before the competition starts.
Vet checks, measuring the height of the dogs and the all important bibs and competition numbers issued to each handler.
Will did everything he could to show his commitment to Team GB!
The Team Event
Each team consists of four handlers who each run a jumping round, then an agility round. The results of the best three runs for each team in each round are counted.
The GB team for medium dogs was Taylor with Elliott, Max with Woody, Will with Rudi and Mariann with Coral. All four partnerships have competed at Championship level in the UK.
In the jumping round, Taylor and Elliott ran first. A great round with just one refusal meant 5 faults. Max and Woody were next. Another super run with just 5 faults for a refusal. The pressure was now on as other teams had gone clear. Will and Rudi were up next:
A clear round! Last to go were Mariann and Coral. A really quick, clear round gave a great finish for the team. This meant the team carried forward 5 faults. Team GB were in 4th place behind the Czech Republic and two Finnish teams who had all taken forward three clear rounds. However, the combined GB times were the quickest so they knew there was so much to play for!
In the Agility, the teams ran in reverse order of their finishing positions in the jumping. Clear rounds were needed for a medal!
Taylor and Elliott did exactly what was needed and went clear. A very cool Max and Woody then matched this by going clear too. If Will and Rudi could go clear, this would guarantee the team would carry forward no further faults to the overall total:
Another clear! This meant Mariann and Coral, the team speed merchants, could go for it knowing that three clears were already secured. An unlucky pole meant 5 faults for the final pair.
The team had a combined total of just 5 faults over the two rounds so now came the tense wait to see what the three remaining teams would do.
The Czech Republic team finished with 10 faults meaning GB were guaranteed a medal.
The first Finnish team had two clear rounds and a 5 fault round to carry forward, meaning they ended on a total of 5 faults.
The second Finnish team also carried forward 5 faults as their final total. All three teams on 5 faults meant it would come down to the combined times of the best 3 runs in each round for each team.
After a long wait while times were checked and miscommunications on faults were rectified, the final results were announced. Team GB were the winners and Junior World Champions!
The presentation on Saturday was for the Agility Round which had Team GB in first place. The medal ceremony for the overall winners would take place the next day when all competitions were complete.
The Individual Competition
Will and Rudi were running in the medium U19 competition. Every pair start with a jumping round, followed by an agility round. The results of the two runs are combined to give the overall winners.
Will and Rudi’s first run was another lovely clear, meaning their first three runs at the JOAWC had been clear:
The fast, fairly straightforward course was not what the pair would have chosen. While Rudi is quick, there are plenty of very quick dogs at the championships, and a large number went clear leaving Will and Rudi in 15th place.
Will had a choice in the final agility run – play it safe and look for a top 10 finish or really go for it to see if they could squeeze into the top 5.
They went for it! Pushing Rudi hard and taking risks unfortunately meant the pair ended up with 10 faults from a missed dog walk contact and a late weave entry. They were the only faults the pair had in the entire tournament, but it was worth giving it a go!
The total of 10 faults still meant a top 20 finish.
The Medal Ceremony
The gold medal for the medium team was the first ever to be won by Team GB at JOAWC.
Huge congratulations to other medal winners from Team GB too!
Max Glover and Woody won individual gold in the U19 mediums:
Taylor and Elliott won individual gold in the U15 mediums:
And Max also won bronze in the individual U19 large with Boost:
The Team Spirit
Management, parents, spectators and team members all agreed that the bond between the team, the support for each other and the undoubted team spirit was a really special feature of these championships.
So congratulations to the whole team, Mariann Bayliss, Will Bacchus, Max Glover, Amelie, Shelby-Bird, Taylor Lyon, Chloe Cooper, Blair Hands, Rebecca Chuter- Smith, Ryan Feehan, Yvie Thompson, Mia Steadman, Rihanna Morgan,Sophie Atkinson and Isabella Twigg. A very special team in every sense!
Some quotes on Facebook to emphasise the level of team spirit:
Greg Derrett, Team Manager:
It has been an absolute privilege to manage this group of up-and-coming British handlers. The Medal count 3 Golds & 1 Bronze plus 3 x 4th and a multitude of class placements, speaks for itself on the way they performed representing their country. But the real story and the truth behind the success, is the bond and team spirit they created. This is what made the event such a successful one for GB in many more ways than the results.
…To the handlers. Thank you for letting me be a part of your journey. It truly was a most memorable experience of managing my first Agility Team GB.
A Sunday night that I will never forget, I’m stuck in a play tunnel, in a bouncy castle, singing “we are the champions” with a world class Team.
Anthony Clark, Team Coach:
They say…. Don’t work with Animals or children and this weekend the GB management team did both… 14 handlers and 17 dogs, what could go wrong… and to be honest the answer on this occasion was NOTHING.
After two and a half years we have been able to finally put ours goals in place for the YKC Agility Team GB squad.
Our two hour unofficial training, and our official training session, allowed handlers and dogs to get on the equipment and ease their minds into the task ahead over the next few days.
Each handler took to the training field with a professional mentality, working their dogs and supporting each other with encouragement and help.
Back in June during our Team analysis meetings with each handler, I set each team member goals of increasing their clear round rate during training sessions and competition classes between then to now… We provided handlers with data and percentages of their clear round rate during the selection process and together we set personal goals.
Our “Game Plan” for each handler was – Clear rounds win prizes.
The team spirit, bond, and camaraderie was like no other I’ve ever seen on any International team – as soon as the team got off the bus I could tell that the weekend was going to be a success, and with that results started to flow in
with both our Small & Medium teams putting in 3 clear rounds each in the first round of the team event, putting us in great stead for round 2. We saw clear after clear within the Individual classes and the teams attitude and support towards each other grew greater and greater.
Going into round two was always going to have pressure, knowing that so many handlers were in great positions, but we wanted to stick to the “Game Plan” knowing that tactically we can achieve more with knowledge, composure and structure – with any sport there is always going to be some blips and disappointments but the team were behind each other no matter what.
Our medal count has started and I know I speak on behalf of the whole management team – We couldn’t have been more proud of all the squad.
Congratulations to our medalists…
But the biggest Congraulations must go to the whole of TEAM GB – as together you all won and lost as a unit and I know this is only the start of a new successful culture.
The journey home
On the journey home, Will and Rudi again stopped off in Denmark where they were interviewed by BBC Spotlight about becoming World Champions. The interview was shown on TV in the southwest region of the UK that evening!
As a bonus, the interview not only featured Rudi but also Aston, in a reference to the last time Will was on Spotlight.
Will’s family members recorded the video below from their TV:
The whole JOAWC adventure saw Will and Rudi travel 3184 miles by car, 20 hours on ferries, two trips through Eurotunnel and 8 countries visited.
More importantly they were part of an incredible team that showed spirit, unity, sportsmanship and skill throughout. They have the honour of becoming junior World Champions while representing their country and have made lifelong friends in the space of a few amazing days.
willbacchus.com 