CELEBRATION, Fla. — An unexpected, come-from-behind victory and a dominating performance highlighted the Small and Large Agility competition for Sporting Dogs on Thursday at ESPN's Great Outdoor Games presented by Dodge at Disney's Wide World of Sports Complex.
Nursing a sore hip, 43-year-old Susan Garrett of Alberta, Canada, steered her mixed-breed dog, DeCaff, back from a disappointing qualifying run to win the Small Agility division gold medal. But while Garrett and DeCaff scored after early adversity, 29-year-old Marcus Topps of Garland, Texas, and his dog, Juice, dominated the 16-dog field from start to finish, winning the Large Agility gold medal for the second straight year.
After posting the slowest time in the qualifying session, Garrett and DeCaff roared to life in the two rounds of competition, leading both and finishing with a combined time of 1:15.12. A bronze-medal winner in the 2003 Games, 5-year-old DeCaff took the first major victory of her agility career. The win was also the first in the Great Outdoor Games for Garrett, a highly regarded trainer and handler who recently injured her hip while exercising.
"I got carried away with the medicine ball," she said. "It has been really painful and the pain was in the back of my mind during the qualifying round.
When you do a front cross, you have to accelerate off your back foot, and I thought about the hip too much. I decided to put it out of my mind when we got back out there. Sometimes, you just have to trust that things will work out OK."
Topps, a former soccer player who entered agility handling only three years ago, was confident that 5-year-old Juice would have the speed to win the competition, but was concerned about his role in the outcome.
"I had a good feeling coming into this," Topps said. "We've been clicking for a while now but I just had to do my job. This competition is about making clean runs with no mistakes, and I wanted to get the commands right. I knew she would be fast. It was good that we had a bit of a lead after the first round because it's a combined thing, and any little bobble in the second run could be trouble."
Juice won with a combined time of 1:09.81.
Garrett and Topps each won $10,000 for their gold medal performances.
Silver medalist in the Small Agility division for the fifth time in six years was Shimmer, handled by Barb Davis of Newman Lake, Wash., with a combined time of 1:19.60. The bronze was won by Joel Lavalley of Murfreesboro, Tenn., handling Marvel, with a time of 1:20.44.
Other medal winners in Large Agility division were Qwik, handled by Stuart Mah of Bryceville, Fla., winning the silver with a combined time of 1:11.09.The bronze was earned by Olga Chaiko of North Hollywood, Calif., handling Luz, with a time of 1:11.43. Fourteen of the 16 entries were border collies, including the top three.
Large Agility standings
1. Marcus Topps, Juice - Garland, Texas
2. Stuart Mah, Qwik - Bryceville, Fla
3. Olga Chaiko, Luz - North Hollywood, Calif.
4. Chris Dyer, Reilly - Southlake, Texas
5. Donna Rohaus, Cap - New Alexandria, Pa.
6. Rhonda Carter, Blast - Houston, Texas
7. Sherry Kluever, Ransom - Romeoville, Ill.
8. Dana Schafer Kailian, Sinjin - Haslet, Texas
9. Theresa Rector, Finn - Paris, Ontario, Canada
10. Jody Lolich-Dietz, Gator - Goodrich, Mich.
11. Lisa Flowers, Dilemma - Westerville, Ohio
12. Sherrie Wilkes, Maci - Summerville, S.C.
13. Julie Daniels, Spring - North Sandwich, N.H.
14. Susan Cochran, Aiko - Sacremento, Calif.
15. Stacy Peardot-Goudy, Able - La Porte, Colo.
16. Chris Parker, Mayhem - Jackson, N.J.
Small Agility
1. Susan Garrett, DeCaff - Alberton, Ontario, Canada
2. Barb Davis, Shimmer - Newman Lake, Mich.
3. Joel Lavalley, Marvel - Murfreesboro, Tenn.
4. Christine Frank, Kimie - Chesterfield Township, Mich.
5. Karen Holik, Sizzle - West Chicago, Ill.
6. Renee King, Hamlet - Rosenberg, Texas
7. Nancy Kleinhans, Jimmy Dean - Jacksonville, Fla.
8. Abbie Tamber, MicroBurst - Oxford, N.Y.
The Games will be aired on ESPN and ABC Sports July 13-17, 2005. Click here for the broadcast schedule.
