Arad: Ștefan Știrbu and Eugen Stoica, the Standouts of the Jihlava Stage

The sixth race organized by the Arad Branch also marked the first race in the Long-Distance category. The organizers decided to release the pigeons from a classic location for the western region, namely Jihlava (Czech Republic).

The first Long-Distance race from the Arad Branch took place on May 24. The 128 participating fanciers entered a total of 5,981 pigeons, which were released from the launch point at 08:05.

A cock raced by Ștefan Știrbu wins the race

After more than six hours from the launch, the first pigeons began to arrive at their lofts. Among the earliest recorded was a young cock, RO-2024-003860, raced by fancier Ștefan Știrbu from the village of Zădăreni. It arrived at 14:23:47, having flown the 552 km race at an average speed of 1,459.45 m/min. Looking at the stage’s ranking, it’s clear that the arrival of Știrbu’s young cock was truly spectacular. The young flyer was 50 m/min faster than the pigeon in second place, and an impressive 43 minutes ahead of the next pigeon from his own loft!

Eugen Stoica lives up to his champion status

In the same Jihlava race, Eugen Stoica managed to uphold his champion reputation. As we well know, the fancier from Felnac boasts an impressive record of national trophies in the Long-Distance category. By winning 1st place in the fancier rankings in this stage, it's clear he's making a strong move toward winning this year’s national trophies. His score in the fancier ranking was only 2.68 penalty points, as his first two team pigeons placed 5th and 11th in the release ranking. Additionally, the percentage of classified pigeons from his entries was very good, 21 out of 38 entered pigeons made the ranking.

As for the Jihlava stage overall, the arrival percentage of 72.08% by the time the race was closed out of all entered pigeons shows that it was by no means an easy stage.