Mush! (source: TASR)
VERY bad weather with thick fog, constant rain, and a cold wind severely interfered with the competition at the Third Open Central European Championship dogsled race and the Slovak Open Championship race held at Donovaly from February 6 to 8, the SITA newswire wrote.
The organisers of the Central European Championship, the Donovaly Donly club, had to cancel the night race stage on Friday evening even though it has been very popular in the past. And it took heroic efforts to save at least the Saturday and Sunday stages.
Overnight from Saturday evening to Sunday morning, they fervently trucked in snow to cover the race course. But the event, in one of Slovakia’s most famous winter sports resorts, was still far from a classic wintertime dogsled race. In the masses of mud and pools of water, Slovak racers most frequently made it to the winner’s platform as they dominated the foreign competition, a total of 65 mushers from seven European countries.
In some categories the international jury were able to judge as few as two racers, or even just one, as many competitors failed to complete the two rounds in the harsh conditions and gave up.
