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Ragdolls with a FIFe-World Winner Title
- WW 01: EP + EC Purr-Fect Dream Angel
Text and pictures submitted by Riitta Paakki, Finland:
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| photo: Alan Robinson |
he decision to go to the FIFe World Show in Germany was obvious to me right after the World Show in Prague, because these shows are something so special, one of a kind events. So I was to go there with my seal bicolor spay Snoozie and she was accompanied by a beautiful 3 months old blue bicolor male kitten Chali (Mirandos Child Of Light), who would move to his new home in Switzerland. I also had my friend's blue bicolor female kitten Nana (Scepters Bacio Nana) with me, she was also entered to the World Show.
Thursday, the day of departure
decided to fly to Munich already in Thursday, because I wanted to have one day off in Augsburg before the show. I had booked the cats to the cabin a long time before the actual day of travel, but then I thought that their big carrier boxes will not fit under the seat, so I cancelled it and the poor things had to travel in the cargo hold to Munich. When I boarded myself I realized that it was a brand new
Finnair plane and there would have been plenty of room for the boxes too.
A terrible surprise awaited me when I arrived in Munich and was waiting for
my cats to be delivered to me: Nana came from the plane bouncing through the
luggage line!! Her box was upside down and inside there was a very surprised
cat, but thank goodness she was alright. Snoozie and Chali came out of the
plane like animals should: carried by the personnel.
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| Chali in the hotel room |
t was easy to find the correct local train from the airport to Munich central railway station, where I would have to change trains. That wasn't so
easy anymore. I was "running" around with all my luggage and cats there and missed 2 trains before I finally caught one going to Augsburg, which is
about 70 kilometres from Munich. The weather had been really beautiful all
the way to Germany, but the minute I arrived in Augsburg it started pouring
rain. I managed to find a taxi, but wasn't so happy to discover that the
driver was a really old man who literally drove all the way to the hotel
very, very slowly and his nose pressed against the window to see the road
better. Finally I was there, at the lovely Hotel Alpenhof and the cats
could have a rest too, after a long trip. When Nana realized that she's in a
strange place, with a strange person and especially with strange cats, she
decided that she will not move from the safe carrier box! Snoozie really
loves to stay at hotels, so she immediately felt like home. And Chali
started to run around with all his toys and made the most of it.
Friday - March 23, 2001
riday was a day off for me, meant for relaxing, shopping and meeting all my
friends abroad. Chali would also leave to his new home in Switzerland. Early
in the morning I headed to the city of Augsburg to do some shopping. It was
raining again. After a few hours of shopping I was trying to find the
correct bus to take me back to the hotel; that wasn't so easy. Finally I
took a tram and told the driver to say when I should step out. Well, he
didn't and I found myself at the end stop. When I was asking for the way to
the Hotel Alpenhof, all the people kept looking at me with pity and they
told me that it's far away. The sun had started to shine very warmly and so
I had to walk for about 4-5 kilometres with heavy bags; needless to say I
was very angry.
hali's new owner Nicole, came to pick him up later on in the afternoon. Her
visit was a very good "language course" to me, since she doesn't speak any English, so I had to manage with my knowledge in German. We had a nice lunch
together and after they had left I was very sad for the rest of the day
because my little sunshine was gone. Late in the evening my good friends,
Marian and Mario from Holland came to visit me and cheer me up. They would
also be at the World Show with their cats.
Saturday - March 24, 2001
hen I turned the radio on that morning, the first song that I heard was a
U2 song - that has always been a sign to me that it will be a really good
day. And so it would be this time too. After a luxurious breakfast I headed
to the big show hall. There was a bus transfer from my hotel so I didn't
have to worry how to find my way there. At the veterinary check-in we had to
sign a paper that stated that you haven't been in England or any other area
where they had this terrible foot- and mouth disease, for the past 2 months.
I heard that there would have been quite a few people coming from England to
the show, but they were banned because of that disease.
here were 925 cats from 25 different countries present at the show. I was delighted to see 29 ragdolls there, and that is quite a lot for the World Show. Most of them came from Finland (10), a couple from Holland and Hungary
and the rest of them from Germany. I guess all the foreign ragdoll owners
were surprised to see so many raggies from Finland. We realized that our cats would be judged first thing in the morning, after all the official openings etc. I had thought myself that if Snoozie won't have any extra winnings during the weekend, or if there won't be any kitten reservations either, so the whole trip will be waste of a lot of money. Fortunately I was wrong: Snoozie became Best Of Variety, and was nominated to the panel and many people actually said already then that she will also be World Winner the next day, among them 3 judges. The other nominated ragdolls were Tiridoll's Daisy Daydream (blue colorpoint kitten in the 3 - 6 months class) and Ciara's Sanleandro-Barclay (seal colorpoint neuter).
fter the show I had to rush back to the hotel, take a shower and head to
the official Gala-dinner. That is always a lot of fun with good food, plenty
to drink and usually good program too. There was a typical German group of
men dancing in their leather trousers, funny hats etc. and also a couple who
provided dance music for the evening. We all had a good time there and the
bus came to take us back to the hotel at 1.30 a.m and many of us had even
after parties.
Sunday - March 25, 2001
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| The BIS panel: Snoozie competing with the Best Male, a Maine Coon |
uess which song I heard again that morning when waking up? Yep, U2... so
then I knew that this will indeed be even a better day than yesterday. Most
of the people who had been at the Gala-dinner looked more or less like
zombies when dragging themselves to the show on Sunday morning and I'm
afraid I wasn't an exception. I was about an hour too late, because we had
to wait for some Judges who had slept way too long because they had
forgotten to change their clocks into summer time! The Judges were staying
at the same hotel so we shared the same bus transfer. Thank goodness my
Dutch friends had fresh coffee to wake me up, and when they started the
panel with category 2 I really woke up since Snoozie would be there very
soon.
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| The official victory ceremony at stage. Each winner got a feather/lace crown to her head, but Snoozie wasn't so keen on such things... |
nd my dream came true, when the Judges voted for Snoozie from about 10
females - so she became the WORLD WINNER 2001 (as the first ragdoll from
Scandinavia and the second in the whole world) and even won the Best In
Show!!!!! So Snoozie really took the whole jackpot there and I was
definitely the happiest girl in the world.
I still wonder that I could actually climb up the stage without fainting and
not to cry there all the time. The whole victory ceremony was something so
great that you all should have been there to feel the beauty of it! They
played a part of Queen's "We are the Champions" to all the winners, and even our national anthem, wow! I still have no recolection of that though, and I had to ask Marian and Mario many times if they actually did play that for
us.
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| Posing for all the magazines and TV-cameras |
t the stage I was given really beautiful, big rosettes and a tiny little
Bastet cat, which was meant to be the trophy of the WW-title. I must say
that that was a bit of an disappointment to me, because you would imagine
that when winning the ultimate title you would get a huge trophy! Some
Finnish maine coon breeders actually made jokes about that: they had been
sitting in the audience far away from the stage and they kept asking me if I
actually won some trophy there or was it really so small because they
couldn't see anything. Snoozie was crowned with a lace and feather type of
thing, and she wasn't so happy about that, but yet she posed very nicely and
patiently to all the photographers there with that thing on her head.
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| A toast to the World Winner title! Actually we ended up having quite a few... |
any
German friends helped me carry all the prizes that Snoozie had won back to
my cage. Among the prizes were appr. 17 kilos of cat food (!), many smaller
prizes and an invitation to go to the official photo session. So we were
rushed from one place to another all the time. Right after our victory I
sent sms to a couple of friends in Finland and most of them called back and
were crying because they were also so happy to hear the greatest news, and
many of them said that they would toast a little champagne for us.
Marian and Mario had 4 bottles of champagne with them, because they had
kinda "known" a long time before the show that some of us would win the WW title, so we had a wonderful party for the rest of that day. Thank you ever so much for that, dear friends! Many foreign ragdoll breeders came to hug
and congratulate me, even people that I had never met before. But that just
shows how happy and proud all of us were, because it wasn't just a great
victory for Snoozie and me, but to the whole breed.
arian and Mario were kind enough to take me to the airport early Monday morning and I must say that I would have never made it without them!!! I had
way too much heavy luggage, so I was worried if they will even take me to
the plane. There was a very nice young man at the check-in and he
"accidently" booked both my boxes into the cabin and didn't even charge
enough money for them, what a nice surprise. So we flew back home in style,
since Snoozie sat on my lap for most of the time and charmed everyone on the
plane. The stewardesses even gave us many extra bottles of wine and more
food when they heard that they have a World Winner on board.
here were no red carpets or TV-cameras waiting for us at the Helsinki airport, but thank goodness there was Sirpa, my best friend who took us home: a Big thank you! It actually took me awhile to fully understand what a magnificiant victory that was for us, not to mention for the entire breed really. And when it hit me, so it hit big time and I must say that "We are the Champions" kept playing in my head for several months. :-)))
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