Pigeon racing is like football
There was a famous quote from Gary Lineker about football: "Football is a simple game; 22 men chase a ball for 90 minutes and at the end, the Germans win." We could come up with a similar quote when looking at the achievements of Peter Janssen from Kleve, Germany, who has reached the top spot in numerous races and competitions. Peter was outstanding in Germany (winning as many as 7 olympic medals with his Olympiad pigeons in the sports category), and in 2013 he decided to start racing in The Netherlands as well. And this has been quite a success story indeed: Peter was soon one of the top performers in the national and international competitions of the Eendaagse Fondspiegel, Gouden Duif, Wie Heeft Ze Beter as well as the PIPA Rankings.
National championships NPO
In this report we will only talk about the top ten places that Peter Janssen has won since he started racing in The Netherlands, in the final results of the national championships NPO. This makes for an impressive palmares from 2013 to 2019, with some particularly noteworthy achievements:
The fantastic First Lady
His two titles of 2nd National pigeon champion middle distance (NPO), both in 2018 and 2019, inevitably bring us to racing hen NL17-1032803 First Lady, which claimed both titles. She was particularly tough to beat in 2019, the year in which she won the PIPA Ranking for best pigeon sprint/middle distance in The Netherlands with 10 prizes, winning most notably a 2nd Chalons en Champagne of 16,785 pigeons (province 9) and a 2nd Tienen of 9001 pigeons (prov. 9 south). She was racing in a league of her own in both these races. She has an astounding list of achievements, making First Lady one of the leading names in the pigeon lofts in Kleve:
Clyde, 1st Dutch Olympiad Pigeon one day long distance, is the sire of First Lady
The pedigree of First Lady shows that she is blessed with some very special origins. Her sire DV0147-14-237 Clyde is regarded as one of the best one day long distance pigeons in the history of pigeon racing in The Netherlands. He has an impressive five victories NPO to his name, and he was sent to the 2019 Olympiad in Poznan as 1st Dutch Olympiad Pigeon one day long distance (category C). Clyde has the following achievements to his name:
Bonnie, 1st Dutch Olympiad Pigeon Poznan cat. middle distance
And since we mentioned Clyde, we should also talk about NL15-1451934 Bonnie. Both top class racing birds represented The Netherlands in the Poznan Olympiad as 1st Dutch Olympiad Pigeons. Clyde represented his country in the one day long distance, whereas Bonnie was 1st pigeon in the middle distance. Bonnie's biggest opponent was in fact the Olympiad requirement with regards to the number of kilometres that you had to cover in the one day long distance. Bonnie fell just 15km short of a truly sensational feat. If he had covered an additional 15 km, he would have led the Dutch selection in both categories, which would have been truly unique. Bonnie is a terrific long distance racing bird nonetheless, judging from his palmares. He ended up winning several titles in the Eendaagse Fondspiegel competition as well:
National victory with Chanty
The national victory in Sector III from Chateauroux in 2019 adds to an already illustrious list of national ace pigeon titles, national championship titles and Olympiad pigeons. Their winning bird was NL17-1032935 Chanty, which had already claimed a first prize NPO in Chalons en Champagne of 16,766 pigeons. Chanty has quite a palmares:
Another round in 2021
2020 was quite a different season due to COVID-19. Peter told us he made some miscalculations, which caused him to miss a few top ten spots at national level this year. It was something he had to get used to after his fantastic series of top results from 2013 onwards. But he looks toward the 2021 season with confidence, hoping to set things straight.