A beautiful winter morning

A beautiful winter morning, it looks more like summer in many countries we went to the Algarve Great derby to exchange some impressions with Hélder Carmo, this man with his team directs this OLR that made a 1st Edition with great success. Hélder tell us a little about yourself and your journey so far? First of all good day, let me thank you for your visit, my name is Hélder Carmo i started in pigeon sport with 15 years old now i have 35 by the hand of my older brother, and like any young man who begins the desire to get good results is always a lot but usually not easy, however we formed a team of three brothers, Jose Marques and Francisco Cid and things ran in relatively well, but we finished a few years later in 2007 we returned I with my younger brother, and we returned with the desire to always get good results, and after two years we already competing  with the best, we got 3 times overall  titles in the clubs of Olhão and Moncarapacho and also managed in Pigeons championships several district titles and a title national and Iberian in 2012. Anyway were good years of many achievements but a lot of work because nothing is achieved without an extreme dedication. From an early age a taste for organization and the association was too revealing and I was the youngest president ever to head the Sociedade Columbófila Olhanenseat the age of 22 was followed by a period of several years as a member of the ACD Faro also I exercise already almost 12 years as Municipal Deputy functions in the town of Olhão. For all places where i have been always try to give a little of me, of my desire to do things better When and why do you decide to do the OLR? As I said earlier the taste for the organization comes from a long time and I tried to putt  these two passions together and simultaneously , as there is in this OLR a very large organization capacity but there is above all an unconditional love for the sport by all its aspects and especially the racing pigeon. When  we decided to move forward with this project we aim to become a world reference in this type of event. Where is the OLR located? We are located in bias do sul between the city of Olhão and the town of Fuseta and I think the space that we found  very good , we have about 6000m2 with all the conditions required for this type of events, we are located in beautiful and traditional town of Olhão , about 10 minutes from Faro Airport , in a land where we can find a little of everything , sun almost all year , something much appreciated by our visitors and essential for the fitness of athletes with Fantastic Beaches , hotels  and a fantastic gastronomy and above all with the more strongly feature in Olhão our people know how to welcoming our visitors . Which are the features of your loft? The loft was built based on two fundamental ideas, functionality and well-being of athletes. We built a whole loft it in thermal material that always allows you to have a pleasant indoor temperature for our athletes, the entire loft is made of washable material to allow efficient and proper hygiene facilities and also we took into account the size according to pigeons we want for our project, we created a loft for the pigeons feel good and the space each one needs, there is one thing we will never do what is called overcrowding because we think this has been a major cause of some disasters that have happened in some OLR, we are now expanding our facilities and it was easy for us to say we have facilities for 5000 pigeons however we will now have facilities for 3000 pigeons and our project will receive 2400 this way we will be able to give assurance to participants that their pigeons will be installed with all the conditions they need to be able to show their full potential. What stands out in your OLR? What I think that stands in our OLR is our commitment to the racing pigeon, got even being perfectionists in what we do, we treat the pigeons with extreme care and if a pigeon is not so well every effort will be made until its full recovery, from the moment they enter our loft are part of our team and how we say we do not let teammates behind. From the first moment we say we do not want to be the biggest one loft race in the world but we want to be the best one loft race in the world for our participants and for our athletes. And this was reflected in the small percentage of losses that we had, in a year when the weather not helped we were able to overcome this adversity with hard work, our pigeons trained a lot and whenever it is we have to learn to manage the proper nutrition so that they can maintain the necessary energy reserves for intense workouts and races. We were convinced that if instead of 385 km had done 500km the results would be the same as the ability of pigeons was at its maximum. Because of this fact next year we will do a harden  race and both semi-final a final will have more miles What is your working day? My  work day starts very early , along with my brother Francisco we spent some time in the loft before we release the pigeons to make sure everything is ok , there are many pigeons and require redoubled attention , then it’s time to fly normally fly 1 hour in the morning , then feed and I step into the office where we deal with all matters related to the participants and communication with our agents , after lunch we went back to the loft for a further period of observation and new flight period 1 hour. It is very important the training of young athletes as they will require excellent physical condition for face the difficulties that they will get What are your aims? Our goals are the ones I mentioned earlier, stating the Algarve Great Derby as a world reference in this type of events, that’s what we work every day , we want to create an event in which the welfare of our athletes is linked to the satisfaction of our participants , we plan to have new entrants and foremost maintain current , we are strengthening the technological component of the event so that in future we can show more of the pigeons to our participants, 2016 will already have news regarding this process. This year we expect a large participation and will reach more countries is also a goal . If you liked the 2015 edition then will love the 2016 Any final notes? Once again thank this opportunity , to be able to give to know a little more of the Algarve Great Derby also like to leave some words of recognition for some people and organizations who contributed to this event and others that are part of our team . First of all my partners in this project because they believe , to francisco Cid accompanying me forever and our success depends on a lot of it , to Sergio Ferreira throughout demonstrated availability and everyone who was with us. my deep thanks also to all officials entities Portuguese Federation of pigeon racing , Town Hall of Olhão County our thanks and finally to our sponsors and the entire team Giantel thank them for their support. Hope to see you all for 2016, and i want to wish to all our participants and friends a holy christmas and a very happy new year.]]>