Highlights
of the 7th Annual World Guppy Contest, Nurmberg, 2002
By Luke Roebuck
The
7th World Guppy Contest held in Nuremberg,
Germany on July 6th and 7th, 2002
was attended by 4 members of the PPGA under invitation
by the sponsoring club DGF. Frank Chang, Jim Heller, Mike Khalid and
myself attended the show.
This event proved to be a truly gala event with
a combined WGC exhibit and the European IKGH 3rd
round annual show.
The sponsoring club, the DGF included show chairpersons
Hermann Magoshitz and Jeus Bergner.
Claus Osche, President of the DGF also presided
over the exhibition and assisted with trophy awards
distribution and both introductory and closing speeches.
The combined events were very well planned and the show
site encompassed an available exhibit room at the rear
of an upscale garden restaurant.The exhibit was actually
split into 2 sections with the local section IKGH show
competition on one side and the WGC exhibit on the other
side. Both WCC entries as well as IKGH entries
were handled simultaneously under separate entry logs.
The
local IKGH show had their own set of European judges
and judged according to the IKGH standards as part of
the seasonal show circuit.
The WGC contest had its own set of rules and
an international set of judges.Both competitions lasted
approximately 4 days duration. Judging was accomplished in approximately
2 days with the show open to the public on the weekend.
This
7th Annual contest was well supported by
the most variety of countries to date including
clubs from Czech Republic, Poland, Germany, Italy, Israel,
France, Sweden, Austria, Belgium, Netherlands, Japan,
Slovenia and the U.S.A. The judging team consisted of
7 members from USA, Austria, Czech Republic, France
and Germany. Acknowledgements
to: Frank Chang, Jim Heller and Luke Roebuck from USA,
Alfons Jestrabek from Austria, Ivan Krousky from Czech
Republic, Hans Peter-Neuse from Germany and Jean Claude
Sanglebouf from France for their hard work on the judging
team.
The
host club sponsored meal tickets at the host restaurant
during the judging.
All in all it was a great experience in meeting
fellow guppy enthusiasts from all over the world. Imagine sitting around a restaurant table
talking about guppies in 7 languages.My visit indeed
to Germany and the 7th WGC had little time
for relaxation.
Hard work for team members like Gernot Kaden,
Hans Peter-Neuse and others to complete the show setup
in time with approximately 500 display tanks complete
with aeration and plants was an unforgettable feat.
The
quality of the entries in my opinion surpassed other
world guppy contests I had attended.
This was reflected in the actual average point
value of this show (an 87.3 point winner is an average
high for a winner).There were very high variation in
guppy strains represented at the show.
Also observations by the USA visitors to the
show dispelled any misnomers that European guppies were
small for show fish.
There were many entries that would meet or exceed
USA/IFGA entry average show size.
A
good idea was showing strains in pairs. Visitors could observe a typical female
as well as male quality of specific strains.
As
usual the Japanese entries were well supported with
46 entries from 16 breeders and there were some new
and unusual varieties of platinum red mosaics and red
galaxies.The entries from Germany, France, Austria and
Sweden dominated the swordtail and short tail classes.
Entries from the newest country to attend the WGC, Israel
were definite attention gatherers with some very large,
young (4 month) fish. Israeli entries included Russian Moscows,
Albino HB Yellow Pastels and HB AOCs. These fish were farm raised by Guy Kaplan
and Nil Avner of Beauti-Fish in the Negev desert area
of Israel – here temperatures can exceed 100 degrees
on a regular basis and ingenious methods of evaporative
cooling has been devised to cool the ponds and tanks
according to Guy.
The
entries from Israel were very large young fish. Had
they been a bit older they may well have gone even higher
in the point standings.
Here
is another Israeli Entry that I was fortunate to bring
home to my fishroom...
This
strain I recognise as a commercial farm strain of tuxedo
Cobra that they have done quite well with.
My
red albino entry lost its female partner ( as well as
some valuable points) he looked spectacular all by himself.
Jim
Heller had a nice yellow entry from his strain of Platinum
Yellows.
The
awards ceremonies were officiated by Claus Osche of
DGF and assisted by Rob Aldorf and Monique of the Netherlands
Club.
The
Top 3 Show Winners were:
1.Jens
Bergner of DGF with a Red Triangle with 87.67 points
2.Miloslav
Sobr of Akvariumzal, Czech with HB Red Triangle 84.33
points
3.Frantislav
Stepanek of Akvariumzal, Czech with Blue Metallic Triangle
Some
notable entries, which imprinted on my mind, included
Heike Bergner’s HB PastelWhite, Detlef Samnet’s Snakeskin
Triangle, Guy Kaplan’s Moscow Solid, Albino HB Yellow
Pastel; Gernet Kaden’s Red Triangles and Metallic Triangles;
Wili Kosa’s Moscow Metallic AOC; Annette Wolf’s Japan
Blue Doubleswords; Walter Schuster’s Snakeskin Topswords,
and John Turessons’ Full Corral Red Double Swords to
name a few.
Please
accept my apologies to those breeders that I did not
mention. The public days were a magnificent display
with 2 large test set up for sponsor displays.
JBL (a large German Aquarium product distributor)
had a huge display.
There
were items which ranged from live food to books and
other products for sale
.
The
DGF spared no pennies in preparing displays of T-shirts
with logos, cups, books, magazines, etc. I met with and talked to many people
from all over Europe that weekend.
Several members of the host club proved to be
invaluable hosts for the visitors.
Special thanks go to Hans Peter Neuse and Max
Rother for assisting us with a car loan for our entire
trip!
Visitors
were also able to visit some DGF member’s fish rooms
in the Nuremberg area as well as Bonn.
Special
thanks to Willi Kosa, Herman Magoschitz and Hans Peter
Neuse for allowing us to visit their fish rooms.
This
will be the topic of another entire article as the visits
were entertaining and fulfilling.
Hermann
in particular deserves special thanks for exceeding
all expectations with a Saturday catered dinner invitation
and party at his home.
The
auction ceremonies were indeed well planned and executed
with all auctioning taking place in a separate room
complete with digital projector photos of the fish being
sold. The
DGF members prepared all auction fish by bagging and
labeling them with proper show ID for references.
It
would be a challenge indeed to match the quantity and
quality of the entries and show display in future shows.
Thanks again to DGF, PNL and SGS member for donating
and trading guppies with PPGA members.
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