It is a race with a single starting gate and a thousand finish lines. The athlete is not a human being, but a delicate white bird, a tireless messenger. Many years ago, as well as being a main course for dinner in a restaurant, pigeons were used as messengers. But carrier pigeons no longer fly through Cairo's skies; no longer do we see them hovering over the roofs of mosques, churches and other big buildings. In Cairo, a metropolitan city, people used to breed domestic birds like ducks, geese, hens and, the most popular, pigeons. Many people bred the pigeons as a hobby - a carrier pigeon racing hobby. Mohamed Saad Abbasi, a former chairman of the Egyptian Union for Carrier Pigeon Racing, is a pigeon fan who has struggled hard to keep this hobby alive, but to no avail. 'Breeding carrier pigeons was first introduced into Egypt by Othman Ramez, who'd picked up this hobby while studying in England," Abbasi says. Ramez brought some white Logan pigeons back home, where he started his own business, keeping and caring for his birds. "His friends learned from him how to breed such birds. He became 'an encyclopaedia' in his field," Abbasi told the local magazine Radio and TV. Then he came up with the idea of founding an association for carrier pigeon lovers, located in Koshtomor St., off el-Boustan Street near Midan el-Tahrir. By the time of Ramez' death, the association had expanded its activities and established the Egyptian Union for Carrier Pigeons. "The union was chaired by many people, who did their best to propagate this hobby. In 1977, the Supreme Council for Youth and Sports then granted them a licence for the union," Abbasi added. Pigeon racing is a sport involving the release of specially trained racing pigeons, which then return to their homes over a carefully measured distance. The time it takes the bird to cover the specified distance is measured and the bird's rate of travel is calculated and compared with all of the other pigeons in the race to determine which bird returned at the highest speed. The winner of a pigeon race is the bird with the highest velocity. “Races can often be won and lost in seconds, and, to counter this, many different timing apparati have been developed. The traditional timing method involves rubber rings being placed into a specially designed clock, whereas a newer development uses RFID tags to record arrival time," Abbasi explained. As a sport, it first achieved popularity in Belgium in the mid-l9th century. "The pigeon fanciers of Belgium were so taken with the hobby that they began to develop pigeons specially cultivated for fast flight and long endurance called 'Voyageurs'," he said. Racing pigeons are housed together in a specially designed dovecote or loft. From about five weeks of age until the end of its racing career, the racing loft is the pigeon's home and this is where it returns to on race day. "The breeding is selective and the training rigorous. Young pigeons are usually trained progressively for at least six months, before being allowed to compete in a race event. "A racing pigeon's initial training involves familiarising it with the loft and its surroundings and training it to use the various features of its home [entry points]. It is also this critical time that the birds learn commands, such as entering the loft when the trainer whistles," he stressed. Abbasi regrets that this sport died out with the advent of avian flu and the precautions taken against birds because of this. This is also what forced the National Council of Youth (previously known as the Supreme Council for Youth and Sports) to issue a decision for closing the union. Pigeons have also been used for many other purposes; for example, to proclaim the winner of the Olympics. In 1860, Paul Reuter, who later founded Reuters Foundation, used a fleet of over 45 pigeons to deliver news and stock prices between Brussels and Aachen, the terminals of early telegraph lines. Even the outcome of the Battle of Waterloo was also first delivered by a pigeon to England. The first regular air mail service in the world was Mr Howie's Pigeon-Post service from the AucklandNew Zealand suburb of Newton to Great Barrier Island, starting in 1896. The world's first 'airmail' stamps were issued for the Great Barrier Pigeon-Cram Service from 1898 to 1908. Homing pigeons were still employed in the 21st century by certain remote police departments in Orissa state in eastern India to provide emergency communication services following natural disasters, but in March 2002, India's Police Pigeon Service messenger system in Orissa was retired, due to the arrival of the Internet.
