My experience at the FCI Agility World Championships - unlike any other competition.

My second guest blogger this week is Abi Doxford who ran her dog Wiggy in the Medium team competition. This was Abi's first time at the FCI World Championships...

This year I had the honour of representing Great Britain as at the FCI world championships in Kristianstad, Sweden.

Experienced handlers often talk about the FCI worlds being ‘special’ and unlike any other competition around, and having attended, I now understand why. 

Why are the worlds so special? It’s like the excitement of running at Crufts or Olympia, mixed with a really large arena, a fast astroturf surface, world class course design and the best dog and handler combinations in the world, then you have something truly special. 


Personally, I found both my dog and I really picked up on the atmosphere. It’s really hard to hold your nerve when the clock is ticking down for you to start. To get round the courses this year, you needed to not only be fast but able to execute skills at speed. Some countries, particularly the Germans and Russians, put on a masterclass at this. Watching such incredible partnerships was totally inspiring. 

I think in the minutes proceeding our medium team run I went through every emotion possible. Unfortunately Ellie and the Coaching Team decide to pull Archie just before the team ran, so there were tears for Ellie, then the realisation and excitement that I would be running first. 

Two dogs  before I ran I was stung by a wasp so had to pull the sting from my finger whilst preparing to run. All this happened in a matter of minutes which made me even more determined to give everything to get round the course. Unfortunately we had a couple of unusual errors probably caused by the atmosphere, but oh boy was it fun.

The Team GB Coaching team do an incredible job of making sure you’re prepared for the event, from course analysis to dog and handler fitness. At the event, they are experts at making sure you’re at the right place at the right time and ready to run. Our team Captain Hayley helped our team to prepare mentally for what to expect. A really big thank you has to go to GB coaching team for all the hard work that goes on behind the scenes to make it happen. 

After competing in the medium team, I then got to watch the individual runs, watching Dave winning a bronze medal was incredible, I think the whole of team GB ran every jump with him. 

Would I do it again?, absolutely, if given the opportunity, and I would encourage anyone else to do so too.