IFSS World Championship!

So.... In a few words - the winter season 2010/2011 has been fantastic! After running in two qualifying sprint races with a line-up of Phoebe, Niklas, Sven and Burka - off we went to the IFSS World Championship! Conveniently this year, it was held here in Norway, at the Hamar Dogsledding Arena.  Actually, it was a Championship in three parts - first the Femundløpet was the first ever official Long Distance Wrld.Ch. event in IFSS history! Next out was the Middle Distance and Sprint events at Hamar - which is where we competed... (Third session was Nordic and Sprint here in Oslo at the Holmenkollen ski arena. The Hamar racing was a chance to test the dogs in the 4-dogs Siberian Husky class (lumped into the "Nordic Breed" category) - 8 km * 3 days!  I can sum it up by saying - YEAH! 7th place out of 13 teams - best Norwegian team :-) Despite having two new dogs (Niklas and Sven came in December), one dog that was almost dead 9 months earlier (Burka had an immune reaction that made her lose all her red blood cells) - Phoebe was the only "known" entity of the team.. Brothers Niklas and Sven are hard-driving - Niklas showing more confidence, but Sven with a seemingly endless supply of "go-juice"! Of course, Phoebe is screaming to go and certainly a natural leader, but I felt it best to have the girls and boys teamed up - what a team! Gooooooood dogs...
I am VERY happy with a 7th place in the World Championship in the very first race season....! Still need one more dog to make a good 4-dog team, since Burka is not so hard-driving or long-legged; she is an extremely competent MD dog - all her siblings ran on Tore Hunskår's World Championship MD team :-) She is treal hero on my race team, but unfortunately not be used in breeding... Not so, Phoebe! She will be bred to Niklas this summer if everything goes to plan - 0% inbreeding and combining two proven Sprint lines will be interesting.....! Now time to enjoy the spring and coming summer...