Highlights of the 7th Annual World Guppy Contest, Nurmberg, 2002
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 mostvariety 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.
2. Here is another Israeli Entry that I was fortunate to bring home to my fishroom
3. 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.
Here are the visitors from Israel at one of the fishroom tours.
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 Pastel White, 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 members for donating and trading guppies with PPGA members.