April 5th, 2023 Wednesday Wrap Up (UKI, Beer Bike, March Madness)

On Last Week’s Episode…
Sarah, Jennifer, and I invited the 16” and 20” winners (Emily Klarman and Perry DeWitt) from AKC Nationals to join the podcast, which is now available for everyone.

Last week, I also mentioned that I’m still catching up on dog agility results from Crufts, and that’s still true, so it will be at least one more week before I’m ready to talk about that event.

UKI Announces New Invitational Event
UK Agility International (more commonly known as UKI) continues to expand. Now with over 14,000 registered members, UKI recently announced the creation of the 1-TDC North American UKI Invitational. The event will take place at the Canlan Sports facility in Barrington, IL (close to Chicago) on March 29-April 1, 2024. The event will be invite-only for 600 handler-dog teams, and invitations will be offered based on results at the US Open, Canadian Open, or West Coast Open. The line up for events now looks like this:

• UKI Canadian Open, September 7-10, 2023 (Saint John, NB)
• UKI West Coast Open, September 28-October 1, 2023 (Paso Robles, California)
• UKI US Open November 15-19, 2023 (Jacksonville, Florida)
• North American UKI Invitational March 29-April 1, 2024 (Barrington, Illinois)

The North American UKI Invitational will host the World Agility Open-style Pentathlon, Biathlon, and Games Challenge, culminating in a Blue Ribbon Final. In addition, the Invitational will award byes to the three UKI Opens for 2024. Five WAO spots will also be awarded (one in each height).

You can join the 1-TDC UKI North American Invitational Facebook Group for updates.

Beer Bike
Sarah and I met in college, at Rice University in Houston, Texas. Each year, the residential colleges (dorms) at Rice have a campus wide water balloon fight against each other followed by Beer Bike, a relay race where half of your team bikes around the track and the other half drinks beer (or water) as fast as possible, in alternating fashion (starting with the chug). Iron athletes will take on both roles, biking first, and later drinking. Women and alumni chug 12 ounces and ride 2 laps while the men chug 24 ounces and ride 3 laps. The graduate students also band together to enter a team.

Students take Beer Bike seriously, training and preparing for months in advance, with tryouts for both the bike team and the chug team. This year, the event was held on April 1st, and our old college (Jones College) captured the men’s race while taking second place in both the women’s and alumni races. The outcome reinforced one of our most venerated college cheers, “Jones wins again!”

[PHOTO]: Isaac poses with Rice mascot Sammie the Owl here but stabs him in the back later when he commits to attending Brown.

Last year, I took Isaac to Beer Bike in an attempt to influence his college decision making process. It didn’t work, as he will be at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island this fall. I ask you, fair audience, how could he pass on the glorious opportunity to do this in front of more than a thousand people?

Now, imagine an equivalent dog agility event called “Beer Dog Agility”. You and your dog zip around an agility course, and as soon as you cross the finish line, your agility buddy chugs beer. Or perhaps wine would be better than beer?

2023 Women’s March Madness
I can’t remember the last time I watched a women’s college basketball game. It may have been when I was still a student at Rice, supporting the Lady Owls. However, like more than 12 million people, I tuned in to the NCAA Women’s Tournament to watch the University of Iowa’s Caitlin Clark put on the performance of a lifetime. I was already familiar with her game because she is no secret to hardcore basketball fans, but I was still amazed with her extraordinary play during this year’s March Madness. Her game is like Steph Curry’s, built around her ability to make ridiculous three point shots from well beyond the three point line, against any defender. Iowa’s run to the title ended in the championship game versus a better Louisiana State University team in the most-watched women’s college basketball game in history, but in my opinion, the real winner was women’s sports. The game drew an average of 9.9 million viewers, crushing the previous record of 5.7 million which was set in 2002. Caitlin Clark was the draw. For comparison, the men’s championship game averaged 14.7 million viewers, while the FIFA World Cup Soccer Final drew 16.7 million viewers on FOX Sports.

Email me at team@baddogagility.com to let me know your thoughts on March Madness, and whether or not we should add alcohol to dog agility.

Happy Training,