Dubai, February 7 2016 – The NAS and MRM Falcons teams landed two qualifiers apiece for Tuesday’s tournament showdown in the ‘Hur Wahash Jernaas’ category for Sheikhs and the general public at the Fakhr Al Ajyal (‘The Pride of the Generation’) Championship for Falconry Telwah on Saturday.
NAS’ challengers clocked 19.407s and 19.442s respectively to end up second and third respectively, whereas MRM’s contenders finished sixth and eighth with times of 19.839s and 19.912s.
The race was won by a falcon from the H3 outfit in 19.307s. The F3 team meanwhile had 13 birds in the 54-strong field, but none of them were able to dip inside the top 10 places. They had eight finishers between positions 13 and 23, three in the thirties (31st, 37th and 39th) and two didn’t finish (DNF).
Elsewhere, in the ‘Hur Wahash Farkh’ classification for the locals, Hamad Rashid Bin Ghdayyir’s aptly-named bird ‘Rolex’ showed typically expert timing to take the honours in 19.573s ahead of 60 other falcons. YLS (19.755s) were 0.182s further back in second, with H3-B (19.797s) an additional 0.042s adrift for third place.
Those three times were the only ones to come in under the 20-second barrier in this category as the slightly slower birds of the H3 team (20.256s) and Hamad bin Mejren (20.316s) rounded off the top five berths. YLS and H3 also had falcons coming in seventh and ninth respectively, thereby meaning that they – much like MRM and NAS previously – will have two qualifiers each contesting the climactic finale in two days from now.
Yesterday’s (Saturday’s) action saw GCC participants enter the fray for the very first time in this particular competition and a wide cross-section of nationalities spanning across the Arabian Gulf were in attendance. Bahrainis, Kuwaitis, Omanis, Qataris and Saudis were all understandably only too keen to finish on the podium and therefore win a top-of-the-range vehicle, while placing inside the first 10 falcons resulted in a monetary award.
Nonetheless, the cars and cash were seemingly not the only things the GCC contingent would take away from this lucrative and prestigious event, which is organized and supervised by the Hamdan Bin Mohammed Heritage Center (HHC).
“It’s important in terms of our mission to disseminate our Emirati culture and heritage that we see people from different GCC countries coming here. It is good for all of us and the entire gathering is like one big festival,” Dumaithan bin Swaidan, Head of the Fazza Championship for Falconry Telwah Committee at the Hamdan Bin Mohammed Heritage Center (HHC), said.
“They communicate with each other and talk about different falcons or the way they prepare and train them. When GCC participants come here, they see how UAE nationals prepare their birds and witness different kinds of falcons. They depend more on certain types of falcons in the GCC, whereas the UAE nationals here take them from different regions around the world. Wherever there are breeders and farms, we import their falcons. There’s lots of demand to import here.”
Today (Sunday) sees the culmination of the two-day GCC tournament with the ‘Shaheen Wahash Farkh’ and the ‘Shaheen Wahash Jernaas’ contests, while the Sheikhs and the general public will compete in those same two categories in what is their last chance to qualify for Telwah tournament final on Tuesday morning.
The Sheikhs classification of the Airplane Championship shall commence tomorrow (Monday) morning.