Dalls Burston Polo Club, Warwickshire, UK
Will & Rudi are back in the GB team and retain their World Champions title!
To give you a flavour of this amazing event, we are again indebted to the brilliant Gavin Lyons for this superb musical montage of the GB team in action:
A much larger team than last year was picked to represent Team GB this year as the host team has the right to have a larger squad.
The first day saw the team arrive at the magnificent setting of Dallas Burston:
The Preparation
Unofficial team training – a two hour session to get the dogs and handlers used to the surface and the equipment to be used at the event.
Official team training – held at the venue the day before the competition starts.
Vet checks, measuring the height of the dogs without a previous international measure….
…and the issuing of bibs, competition numbers and the international caps!
The Opening Ceremony
The Opening Ceremony saw the colourful parade of all of the teams in their national kit and bearing flags before a number of speeches from a range of representatives. As the host country, the GB team were last to enter the arena and looked particularly impressive despite the torrential rain!
The video of the full opening ceremony can be found by using this link.
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 had three partnerships that were in the gold medal winning team last year, Will & Rudi, Taylor & Elliott and Max & Woody. The new pairing were Amelie & Dex who had been reserves last year and performed consistently all year including securing a win – on spot at the tryouts. This was a strong team with high expectations!
In the jumping round, Will & Rudi ran first. A super smooth opening saw the pair go clear:
Amelie and Dex were next and they also posted a confident, smooth clear round. Hannah and Elliott were the third pairing and had a lovely run with just one refusal meaning 5 faults. The last to go in the jumping round were Max and Woody – they put in a super quick clear round. The team could therefore go into the agility with no faults to carry forward!
This left the team in 2nd place overall, just behind the German team on time only.
This year, medals were awarded for classes too, so the team picked up a silver for their first run.
In the Agility, the teams ran in reverse order of their finishing positions in the jumping. This meant Team GB would be running one from the end. Clear rounds were needed to guarantee a medal and to put pressure on the German team in the race for gold.
Will and Rudi again were asked to set the tone for the team and they obliged brilliantly:
A fast clear round was a great platform for the rest of the team to build on. Amelie and Dex produced another beautiful clear round as the next pair to run. This meant one more clear would ensure that the team would finish with an overall total of no faults.
Taylor and Elliott did exactly what was required and put in yet another faultless round. This gave Max and Woody the chance to really attack the course and go for a really fast time. Yet again the Team GB pairing put in a clear round.
It is very unusual for a team of four pairs to all put in clear runs under such conditions. The overall total of zero faults meant that the German team, last to go, needed at least three clear rounds in a quicker time than GB. Under this pressure, it is not surprising that three of their team posted faults meaning that Will, Taylor, Amelie and Max had not only won the agility round, but had also won overall gold and were World Champions by quite a margin.
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 was aware that at this standard across only two runs, Rudi might not have the speed to gain a podium place so he needed to really push both runs. Unfortunately, it was not to be.
In the jumping the pair looked quick, but a call that was too early by Will meant that Rudi missed his cue to turn right out of a tunnel into the weaves, leading to an elimination:
This meant that their chance of an overall medal had gone but, for their last ever run for Junior Team GB, the pair wanted to go out in style. On a very tough Lee Gibson course, the pair showed a range of skills and were only denied a clear round right at the end when Rudi came down the dog walk so quickly (and got the contact) that he couldn’t put on the brakes soon enough to make the weave entry. The pair were happy enough though to sign off with a very skillful 5 fault round with a gold medal already in their pocket!
The Team
The medals were all presented as part of the closing ceremony. Team GB dominated much of that event with a record number of medals and podium places for the team.
The complete closing ceremony can be found by clicking here. At the end of the closing ceremony, Will had the great honour of handing over the International Agility flag as a symbol that the event was closing. Will was one of five members of Team GB who will ‘age out’ making this their last appearance for the junior team. Below you can see the five Grace, Blair, Sophie, Will and Amelie – what a great event to finish on!
There are 16 overall classes at the event including team and individual events and the brilliant Team GB secured 12 medals including 5 golds. This is in addition to the 21 class medals secured by teams and individuals!
The team success, as last year, was built on an incredible sense of team spirit with each member of the team supporting everyone else – running from ring to ring to cheer on their team mates. The team ethos is again beautifully summed up by the team manager Greg Derrett:
Junior World Championship 2023.
We had a few goals for this years Junior squad.
The 1st was to win at least ONE medal (after all, we are competing for our country).
33 medals later I think we can 
that as a target hit. 12 overall medals including 5 golds, 21 class medals, 30% of all medals available round GB necks. Quite an unbelievable haul that was truly special to be part of.
The 2nd goal was to develop some of our handlers for their future agility careers. I’m not going to single out who and what but, we have seen some huge steps forward for junior and also potential future senior team members. Many of the 23 team I believe will represent us for the foreseeable future.
The 3rd and final goal, to build on the team spirit, attitude and ethos of the 2022 team.
I think I’ve always been very clear in my belief that the right people (in & around the team), with the right attitude, with a team belief and total support of each other, is what brings success when representing your country AND is far more important than individual brilliance.
These 2 pictures incapsulate GB juniors. The 2nd picture (and by far my proudest moment of the tournament) might just look like a group of handlers standing in the torrential rain. Essentially they were. What you can’t see is a team mate waiting to run. As she entered the ring the rain hit and the judge stopped the ring. Everyone else left, running for shelter. Team GB stood there chanting until the class restarted, not once did they consider leaving and not giving 100% support to their team mate.
It’s this team spirit and togetherness that gives me optimism for the future of British Agility.
1,2,3 Team GB 
GB
This was Will and Rudi’s last year representing the Junior Team GB. It has been an incredible experience and would have been so without the gold medals.
The team over the last two years have demonstrated how important the concepts of friendship, support and teamwork are to success at individual and team level.
Will has had fantastic times and made many true friends within the team. That is the important bit – being part of a World Champion winning team was a lovely bonus!
willbacchus.com 