Last weekend, on May 17-18, 2025, the Open National Agility Competition, known as the “SNAU Cup,” was held in Kyiv. This CACAg-ranked event served as a qualifier for the AWC FCI 2025 World Championship. Today, agility is the most popular type of canine sport, attracting the largest number of participants both abroad and here in Ukraine.
Since 2016, our faculty, in collaboration with the Sumy Regional Dog Breeding Center of the Cynological Union of Ukraine and the Sumy team “Adrenaline”, has been organizing the “SNAU Cup” agility competition, a CACAg rank event – the highest level of qualification for the FCI Agility World Championship. Unfortunately, we are currently unable to host such events in our own city. For the third year in a row, we have been organizing them in Kyiv, at the excellent indoor agility arena, “Run for It.” For the third time, we have tried to bring at least a little of the atmosphere of our city and our university to this competition.
This year, as usual, the event brought together both experienced athletes with their four-legged partners and beginners. Over two days, there were 416 runs, with more than 100 sports pairs competing in different categories from various cities in Ukraine, including Kyiv, Sumy, Odesa, Kharkiv, Dnipro, Chernihiv, and Cherkasy.
Traditionally, one day of the “SNAU Cup” is dedicated to juniors under 18, who compete on the same courses as adults. We are pleased that the number of young athletes increased this year, and some of them are preparing to represent Ukraine at the Junior Agility World Championship in Portugal this summer.
Our Sumy athletes also proudly made it to the podium more than once. The Best Junior Cup on the Debut course was won by Anzhelika Havryk from the Sumy team, while on the A1 level course, the best junior was Yelyzaveta Shynkarova from Sumy. We would also like to note once again that the coaches of the “Adrenaline” team, Nataliia Bozhko and Olena Spivak, are graduates of our faculty under the “Cynology” program.
We sincerely thank everyone who helped us organize and run the championship. Special thanks go to our sponsors: the well-known domestic manufacturer of dog training products IPO4YOU, the nationwide pet store chain MasterZoo, the Italian pet food company Cennamo Group, and, of course, our Faculty of Biology and Technology. A special and unexpected joy for the winners of the A3-level qualifying courses was the handmade gifts from our young dog trainers, Liza and Anzhelika.
We are grateful to the Armed Forces of Ukraine for the opportunity to gather with friends, communicate with people, and “recharge” emotionally.
We are confident that in the future we will definitely see young agility athletes at our home university! See you next year at the “SNAU Cup!”
