Ilona Erlebachová: a look back at the IFSS European Championship in Jämijärvi 2024

This year the high point of the off-snow season for us was the European Championship, held on 16–20 October 2024 in Jämi, Finland. This year’s preparation was complicated by my shoulder injury, and we left for the championship without a single race behind us. So we went without much idea of how we stood this year compared with the competition.

We set off on the 1,700 km journey with plenty of time to spare, on Saturday 12 October. Journeys this long are quite demanding for dogs. For their safety they travel in transport crates, so you have to stop often so that they can relieve themselves, stretch and have a run. So on the way we treated them to a run on a sea beach, a walk through Tallinn at night, a walk in Helsinki and a run by Finnish lakes.

Monday

After midday we arrived at the stakeout – the place set aside for parking at races. That same afternoon I went out to ride the trail on my bike. The bikejoring trail was 6.1 km long, with lots of turns and an ideal (sandy) surface for dogs’ paws. Even after riding it without the dog I really liked the trail, and I wasn’t the only one. All the racers were thrilled with this trail. It was fun and fast, but the last 2 km of gentle climbing to the finish really tested the dogs and often decided the final result.

Tuesday and Wednesday

On these days training was allowed on the trail. For safety, training was split into time slots. In the morning the dog teams trained, for 2 h after lunch dogs on leads could go on the trail, and in the next block the scooter riders and cyclists with dogs trained. We welcomed the chance to train on the trail and made use of it. Clip and I trained on both days. By going round it, the dog memorises the trail, and the cyclist gets to try taking the turns at speed. After all, riding with a dog is completely different from training on the trail without one. Already after training you could see that the times would be fast. On Wednesday evening the opening ceremony was held in the local sports hall.

Thursday and Friday

From Thursday on, the racing was under way. The first 2 days were for teams and scooter, Saturday and Sunday for bikejoring and canicross. On Thursday and Friday, Clip had an hour’s walk and run in the morning and then rested. I did my training on the bike and then during the day helped my national team colleagues at their starts. You know, fetching things, holding things…

Saturday

And here it is: our turn had come too. Our start was set for 11:15 local time. From the morning the dogs are given water so that their bodies are well hydrated and ready to perform. So our day began before 6 in the morning, and with it the merry-go-round of walking × watering. I start my own warm-up 40 minutes before the start too – a warm-up ride on the bike. Because it was quite cold, I kept warming up until the last possible moment, and friends looked after Clip before the start: they walked him and brought him to the start at the set time, and at the start they also helped me hold the dog and the bike. Starts were at one-minute intervals. We opened the bikejoring category, so we had no racer in front of us and could concentrate only on our own ride.

From the very first metres Clip ran superbly, without mistakes. We enjoyed the ride to the full all the way to the finish, where we had the fastest time across all the bike categories, men and women. At the finish Clip wasn’t even very tired, but even so you need to walk the dog for 20 to 30 minutes, give him products for faster recovery and then feed him in good time, because a second race day was still ahead of us. For the rest of the day there’s time to rest, for dogs and humans alike, and of course time to go over the day’s racing with my national team colleagues.

Sunday

It greeted us, as was usual during the championship, with a cold, windy morning. On the second race day the starts always go from the fastest racer of the day before, so on Sunday too we opened the race and had a “clean” trail. As on Saturday, Clip couldn’t be faulted. A hundred per cent from start to finish, without the slightest slip. Our time was 3 s slower than on Saturday, but that was down to the headwind, which gave the racers a really hard time on the long finishing straight of about 800 m. On Sunday too we had the fastest time, and so we became European champions. But what really pleased me was that, on our combined time, we were the very fastest cyclists of the whole championship, among men and women alike. After the second round, too, you need to take care of the dog – walk him, give him a drink, feed him later, do a cool-down ride on the bike – and then it’s time to share the experiences.

After the last racer finished, the results were announced in the local hall, and then it was just a matter of packing up and leaving for the Czech Republic. That same Sunday we moved to Helsinki, where we spent the night, and in the morning we took the ferry to Tallinn and then went home through Latvia, Lithuania and Poland. On the way back, too, we made time for a long walk by the sea with the dogs, and then, with only short breaks to walk the dogs, we sped on towards the Czech Republic. We got home from the championship in the early hours of Tuesday.

More about Ilona on the Ilona Erlebachová page.