Nicolas & Filip Norman (Knokke-Heist, BE) excel with descendants of stock breeder Florian

For years, the American pigeon fanciers have been selecting their pigeons mainly via One Loft Races all over the world. Pigeons that can often prove themselves in extreme conditions. We would like to introduce you to the cream of the American pigeon sport.

PIPA had the huge pleasure to receive a testimonial from Jean-Marc Thibaut-Boons just a few hours after the end of his auction. He wanted to underline the excellent relationship built throughout the years with PIPA and mostly during his auction where all his pigeons born before 2017 were sold.

On March 2nd and 3rd the organisation will open their doors for the many thousands of visitors who all want to join the initial starting shot of the coming season.

They had already won this championship in 2012 and 2017, and the Vandenheede brothers have now managed to add another title of General Champion of Belgium to their palmares in 2018. This is quite a feat!

Francis finally starts to harvest the fruit of his breeding strategy built around his two super stalions: the 'St-Vincent', 1st national of the same race in 2014, and his brother 'Origui', 2nd national Agen the same year.

If we were asked to give a description of the Hardy Krüger pigeon breed as opposed to the other teams, we might perhaps say that they are playing in the Champions League. But that does not quite cut it. This is really an extraordinary pigeon breed.

Jos Martens did it again in 2018: he claimed another international victory, after having been victorious in Marseille (2015) and Tarbes (2010).

You can tell from our previous report that Kees has been working hard over the years; he invested a lot of time and money to try and make it to the top. But it takes more than that to become a top class fancier of course. Over the years, Kees has become a force to be reckoned with.

Most fanciers tend to associate the classic from Barcelona with such champions as Etienne Meirlaen, Batenburg-Van de Merwe or Jelle Jellema, but we should not forget Frans Bungeneers, a marathon champion who repeatedly dominated the number one classic in the 21st century.

Monday the 18th of February, these new auctions will start: F. & N. Norman (BE), R. & D. Pierre (BE), Nico van Noordenne (P-B), Frans Bungeneers (BE), Luc de Laere (BE), Gebroeders Raets (BE), Romein Klein (NL), Bart Geerinckx (BE), best of USA, Philippe Dobbelaere (BE) & Riddersclub van België

The following auctions ended Sunday 17th OF February: Kubacek Lubomir (CZ), Jeroen & Stijn Rans (BE), Thibaut-Boons (BE), Stef Bals (NL), Co & Piet Verbree (NL), Scheele Brothers (NL), John Crehan (UK) and Karlo van Rompaey (BE).

The way in which Gino and his son Jasper Clicque dominated the national races this season was quite extraordinary. They claimed several top prizes every week, and they added quite a few national championship titles KBDB to their name at the end of the season.

The Joël Verschoot pigeon auction, in which Joëls sells his old birds from 2016 and older on PIPA, takes place from Monday 4th of March until Sunday 17th of March. You can either download the catalogue here, you can order a printed catalogue or you can pick up a copy at next weekend's Fugare!

Here is the 2019 Olympiad result. In the country rankings, Poland, Slovakia and Germany are on the podium. The Netherlands take the 7th place and Belgium is 13th.

The combination from the town of Berlaar, home to quite a few successful teams, had its national breakthrough in 2013 with a national first prize from Nevers with racing bird Jente. They continued to deliver the following season, with Tarzan winning the title of National Ace Pigeon Longer Middle Distance KBDB YBs. That same Tarzan is now showing his potential in the breeding loft.