Cristinel Chelaru

Cristinel Chelaru, a pigeon fancier who recently returned to the racing pigeon sport, quickly became one of the best Long Distance players in Romania. He is already a multiple national champion in various categories of Long distance and winner of several awards within the Gold Club, but it seems that his motivation has remained as strong. At the first Long Distance stage of this season, the pigeon fancier from Păunești, Vrancea county, had, by far, a performance worthy of a true champion.

For pigeon fanciers from Vrancea County, the first official competition of the 2024 season was the first long-distance race, starting from the Polish town of Tomaszow. The competition was organized in partnership with pigeon fanciers from Galati county, so the numbers were important: 12,131 pigeons and 264 breeders.

Cristinel Chelaru's pigeons occupy the first 8 places on release

The 12,131 pigeons engaged in the race were released at 06:15. The competition distances were between 550 and 600 km, for Cristinel Chelaru the stage had a distance of 561 km. Being extremely focused on these competitions, Cristinel Chelaru prepared the stage to win it, which he did. After more than 8 hours of flight, precisely at 14:42, the first three pigeons arrived in Cristinel Chelaru's loft. The first was registered the hen with the series RO-2022-3016742, hen that also had an excellent performance in the 2023 season, when she ranked all five funds to which she was employed. She was immediately followed by the two pigeons that arrived at the same time as her, this time cocks, one of them being male RO-2020-2003793, national Olympian in the Long distance category. Seconds later another hen arrived, followed within minutes by four more pigeons. More precisely, the first 8 pigeons that arrived in Cristinel Chelaru's loft were recorded in just 11 minutes. They took the first 8 places on the launch, which represents an excellent season debut for Cristinel Chelaru and, at the same time, a serious option for new national trophies.

What attracts our attention even more is that among the 8 pigeons there were also the 5 team pigeons, an aspect that proves to us at what level the pigeon fancier from Vrancea competes. Also, although it was no longer the case, it must be stated that inevitably Cristinel Chelaru is also first in the ranking of breeders. However, it must also be said that all the 5 pigeons of Cristinel Chelaru's team have at least one presence in the national top 10 in different Long Distance categories, which explains these top arrivals.  "The pigeons compete in widowhood, a method that started four weeks before the first long distance race. For competitions I use the Beyers Long Distance mix, but I also put a lot of emphasis on training around the kennel. I watch very carefully how the pigeons behave and I can tell if they are in shape or not. I also take them to two or maximum three training sessions with their personal car, somewhere 50 km away. But, for example, before this excellent contest for me, I could only take them once. My breeders come almost entirely from Dutch or Belgian fanciers. Among them, I would mention the Belgian tandem Thibaut-Boons or Jacob Poortvliet, Andre Roodhooft, Gert Jan Beute, the Engels Family, Joel Verschoot or Roger Debusschere. I think that these very good origins also contribute to these performances", explained Cristinel Chelaru.