Over 200 falconers competing in speed races

Championship organised by Hamdan bin Mohammed Heritage Centre More than 200 falconers are competing in speed races at the Fazza Championship for Falconry, organised by the Hamdan bin Mohammed Heritage Centre. Mohammed bin Abdullah, head of Technical Committee, said various falcons are participating in two categories of races — the Gyr Shaheen (younger) and Gyr Shaheen (older) speed races.
"There have been some major changes in how we go about timing the falcons in this year's championship. We have enlarged the finishing line for accuracy in timing. We are now using Wi-Fi to immediately transfer results to the TVs in reception. We have also made it easier to use TV graphics,” he said.
The course is also double the length of what it was previously and new windbreakers have been installed to accommodate this, Abdullah informed.
"We really have put a lot of time into making sure the public can live in the moment when they see what is happening, on their TV sets. We also have displays for the wireless airplanes that are used to train the birds,” Abdullah added.
He said that the main operation room for the competition was actually based out of a van that had been customised to allow for the monitoring equipment, timing system and the Wi-Fi technology to be moved around the course, without disrupting the flow of information to the reception of televisions.
The Fazza Championships for Falconry, organised by Hamdan bin Mohammed Heritage Centre, had to be extended to accommodate all the entrants. It began on December 31 with the Airplane Category, and due to the large number of participants taking part in this category, organisers had to extend it to January 1, as well.
Falconer Ahmed Saif said that he joined the Fazza Championship for Falconry recently, although he had been practicing falconry since childhood. "I have always led a Bedouin lifestyle. Nowadays, the type of falcons you can own depends on which farm you get them from. Personally, I purchase my falcons from Germany. It usually takes one month to train a falcon. Falcons vary in price as well. Some can be as much as Dh150,000, while others can go for Dh10,000 to Dh20,000.”
Source: Khaleej Times