Nordic Championship for Flatcoated Retrievers
Norway, Denmark, Finland & Sweden.
The Nordic Championship for Flatcoated Retrievers (NC) are under evaluation. All four Nordic FCR clubs have the last months been discussing how the NC could be evolved to build a broader interest in the FCR as a hunting dog as well as keep the competitive element alive by bringing the best of the best Nordic dogs together annually. There is an agreement to have a four-year evaluation period where we aim at redefining the scope and the model for the NC. Sweden is the host for NC in 2018, and already here we will present the NC in a new fashion.
Photo: Andreas Fälth
Long term goal
The purpose is to have a cross-border meetings within the FCR breed where it is possible to gather and evaluate top FCRs. At the same time, the social aspect of the NC is very important. The NC shall combine the completive element with the long-term recruiting aspect where we attract breeders and new FCR owners to see the working side of the breed. In short, increase the interaction and interest in the working aspect of the FCR, increase the number of Nordic Working FCRs and compete and have fun together across borders.
The Golden NC has been an inspiration in the proses of the evaluation so far, as it has proven to gather a broad base of people and dogs and have been growing in popularity as well as letting the best working golden show themselves and compete with its Nordic peers.
The NC will continue as an annual event rotating between the Nordic countries and include a team event and an individual competition. The first new element to test is to have the team event arranged under the same rules and standard as the IWT. The IWT stands for International Working Test and is an annual European team event on dummies. It has its own rules and is therefore an unofficial working test with the purpose to identify the best team. The level of the tasks is what we define as Elite / Winner level.
Photo: Andreas Fälth
C, B and A test in 2018
We start off with a true and tremendous event in Sweden in 2018. It will be a three-day FCR weekend from 12:th to 14:th of October. On Friday the IWT, the team event, will take place with 2 teams with 3 dogs per country gathering 24 elite dogs totally. This is followed by an Elite B-test on Saturday where the individual Nordic championship is awarded among the 24 contestants.
The Sunday event is not a part of the NC, but instead the Swedish FCR club’s annual A-test. It is expanded to 16-dog test and planned close in time and distance to NC2018 allowing more of the dogs a possibility to enter. To start in the A-test a dog most have 1:st price in a Swedish KKL (approved KKL before 170101), a 1. price in a Danish Open A-test or approved warm game trial according to Finnish or Swedish B-trial rules.
2019 – 2021
Norway has the honour of arranging in 2019, Denmark in 2020 and Finland in 2021, and we will use the experience in Sweden in 2018 setting the final plans as we go forward. In Norway in 2019 we aim to try one additional element; a possibility of more than 2 teams per country and that there will not be a demand that every dog in the teams are elite class dogs. The IWT tasks will still have winner class level.
Representatives from each club / committee take place of the annual evaluation. In addition, we will strive to have the participants input through some kind of questioner following each year’s event.
We look forward to evolving the NC further and hope to see as many new faces as possible already in Sweden this year.
Photo: Andreas Fälth