[English] Mediterranea Discus 2010

Mediterranea Discus Contest 2010

Francesco Denitto

The Fifth Edition of the International Discus Competition organized by the Gruppo Acquariofilo Salentino (G.A.S.) took place inLecce(Italy) on April 16-18, 2010.  The Discus Competition took place at a beautiful and historical building in the centre of the old town ofLecce, during the Aquarium Exhibition called “Salento Acquari” which was organized by the same Aquarium Club.

Most of the fishes entered to the Discus Championship were obviously originated fromItaly. However, that a certain number of them came also fromGreece. The competition attracted a total of 70 entries, although more than 20 requests for entries had to be rejected because of their too late notification.

The ten categories were respectively:

Class 1   Heckel wild types;

Class 2   Brown wild types;

Class 3   Blue wild types;

Class 4   Green wild types;

Class 5   Stripe Turquoise (including Snakeskin and Red Turquoise);

Class 6   Solid Blue (Cobalt, Solid Turquoise, Blue Diamond, Reflection D, etc.)

Class 7   Solid Red –Yellow (Red Marlboro, San Merah, Red Melon, etc.);

Class 8    Spotted (Leopard Skin, Leopard Snake Skin, Red Spotted Snakeskin, Red Spotted Skin);

Class 9    Pigeon Blood crosses;

Class 10 Unclassified Class (unclassified strains and crosses).

The Discus entered were of very good quality. On the opening day of the Show, a panel of international judges spent the morning choosing the winners in the various categories. The judges panel gathered Discus experts who responded positively to the invitation of the President of the Jury, Dr. Francesco Denitto (Italy). The international judges were respectively Mr. Jeffrey Tan fromMalaysia, the German explorer Mr. Heiko Bleher, Mr. Nicola Palmieri (Italy), Mr. Kersten Opitz from Czech Republic and Mr. Sebastiano Solano (Italy).

To ease the evaluation of the entered Discus, the President of the Jury who did not take part to the voting, adopted a judging procedures used on the main international Discus Championships based on the assignation of points by evaluating body size, body proportion and harmony, health condition, fins, head, eyes, head and fin markings, body colour and overall impression. The Best of Show was chosen by the jury among the ten first classified for each category.

The Best of Show was a very nice Solid Red Discus (picture 1) belonging to the Italian breeders Andrea Sassi and Antonello Greco (Milan, Italy), and selected following an appropriate breeding program in their farm. The jury also decided to award a prize to the Best Wild Discus of the Show, a magnificent Royal Blue discus (picture 2) belonging to Antonio Ferrara (Naples, Italy).

As it often happens at Discus Contests, there were several controversies about the designated winners, including for the Best of Show.  Many visitors would have had preferred awarding the prize to another beautiful discus, a very nice Leopard Snakeskin Discus (picture 3) which was the winner of its category, entered by the Greek discus breeder Michail Pikis. Another beautiful fish very well appreciated by visitors was a patterned discus entered under the Unclassified Class (picture 4) and belonging to Antonio Stima (Sicily,Italy).  This discus had a beautiful pattern on fins and body, nice colours and a nice form but yellow eyes instead of having the preferable red eye color. This discus  was the winner in the unclassified category and totalized one of the highest total scores in the contest.

The next appointment with the sixth edition of “Mediterranea Discus” is planed for2012 inLecce, as always…

All “Mediterranea Discus Championship” Winners. ITA: Italy; GR: Greece. Note that to the Wild Blue Class there were only two enters.