Welcome to the world of CaniX

When British 1500m international winner James Thie went into the European CaniX Championships he was confident of victory. After all he and his spaniel, Pre, were reigning Crufts champions in the cross country event for dogs and their owners. However, he was in for a rude awakening, as spikesmag.com discovered.

As a former World Indoor 1500m finalist and 3:37 1500m man, James Thie swaggered into the European CaniX Championships in the Czech Republic with his young English Springer Spaniel, Pre, high on confidence.

Thie, 30, had crushed the finest Britain had to offer to win Crufts and the National CaniX title – a sport which combines running cross country attached to your dog with a harness – and had few peers as a top-class middle-distance athlete.

The Welshman had even told spikesmag.com how he would be ‘gutted if I don’t win’. Yet he quickly discovered his pet spaniel was to prove no match for the Greyster, a Norwegian breed of dog which combines English greyhound with German Vorsteh to provide the perfect blend of speed and stamina.

Staged in the Czech city of Decin - the competition spans two days with a 2.7km time trial preceding a 5km cross country race - Thie witnessed four muscular dogs hopping out of a sponsored car on the opening morning but had not suspected the potential threat as he set off on the time trial.

“I thought Pre and I ran absolutely brilliantly and it was happy days when we caught two dogs on the route,” he explains. “But it flashed up on the scoreboard we were only in 7th place and there were still people to run after us. That day we had run 2.7km in seven and a half minutes – that’s 8:30 for 3km and we were down in 12th place. I looked at Pre and thought we couldn’t have done anymore - but we were 45 seconds off the pace. The guy in the lead had run at 4:10 to 4:15 miling pace for 2.7km!"

The reason for their lowly standing, however, quickly became apparent. The leaders were all paired with the powerful Greyster canines ideally suited to the demands of CaniX. Thie and Pre trailed in their wake on the second day of competition as well.

“It was a real eye-opener,” he explains. “They are fast and powerful dogs that have the strength to pull the guys around. The runners don’t run in the normal way they kind of bound and spend a lot of time in the air being pulled along and catapulted around the course. The dogs are maybe pulling then an extra two feet per stride. We are just running with our pet dogs and playing a slightly different game in the UK.”

The extent to which the runners were being aided by their dogs was revealed in the winning time for the 5km – a sensational 13:50 – almost two minutes faster than Thie recorded.

To put this into context this time was less than one minute slower than Kenenisa Bekele achieved when winning the Olympic 5000m title in Beijing.

“For someone to run an undulating cross country course with twists and turns in 13:50 is absolutely phenomenal,” says Thie. “We double checked the [5km] distance because we couldn’t believe it, but it was legitimate."

Far from being dispirited by the experience, however, Thie remains upbeat for the future and is determined to close the gap on the thoroughbreds of CaniX.

“Pre is not even two years old yet so I’m sure there is a lot more to come,” he explains. “I quite like the challenge of trying to get closer and closer. If we’d have won they would have been less motivation to go back and do it again.”

So he is not tempted to change Pre with a giant Greyster for future competitions?

“No, because it wouldn’t give me anywhere near the satisfaction,” he answers firmly. “I’d have much more fun winning it with my Spaniel rather than a big dog.

"In the relays – we passed one of these guys in the CaniX men's relay and one those dogs tried to bite Pre and I was not happy. The guy looked at my medium to small size dog overtaking his powerhouse of a dog and I had much more satisfaction passing him and his monstrous, horse-like dog.”