“At the 16th Annual Shanghai Homing Pigeon Race last April, pigeons owned by a pair of trainers, surnamed Gong and Zhang, took the top four spots — all with suspiciously fast times. The competition saw hundreds of trained homing pigeons fly more than 700 kilometers, from Shangqiu, a city in the eastern part of Henan province, all the way to Shanghai.
However, it turns out that instead of Shanghai, the two men had trained their birds to fly directly to a roost near to the starting line. After the race began on April 29th, they picked up the pigeons at the roost, stuffed them inside milk cartons, and smuggled them on board a high-speed train to Shanghai, according to China’s Legal Daily.
Then, on the afternoon of May 1st, Gong and Zhang released their birds near their respective breeding sites in Shanghai. With their competitors nowhere to be seen, the duo’s pigeons came in first, second, third, and fourth, earning them a total purse of 1.09 million yuan ($160,000).”
I used to be so confused whenever I saw random pigeon coops on the roofs of Shanghai.
Like most animals in China, I assumed someone had intentions of eating them. I was wrong, they were being bred to race. Essentially how Pigeon racing works is race officials take everyone’s pigeons hundreds or even thousands of kilometers outside of the city and then set them free. The first pigeon to make it back to it’s owner’s coop wins. Pretty fascinating stuff but not what I would call a spectator sport unless they decided to start attaching mini-GoPros to the pigeon’s heads. Just take it from Pigeon racing Aficionado Kevin Wang:
“The birds can take days to get home, or not come back at all,” says Wang. “It’s a long wait, and all we can do is hope they can find their way. Pigeon races aren’t entertaining events that can be watched for fun.”
While Pigeon racing won’t be bringing in much TV revenue anytime soon, it’s still quite a lucrative sport.China’s premier 500km “Iron Eagle” race series in Beijing boasts a prize pot of 450 million RMB (approximately 66 million USD). A crazy rich asian recently bought a Belgian racing pigeon for 310,000 Euros.
This is why ya hate to see a couple assholes take advantage of China’s excellent public transportation options and ruin the integrity of the sport for everyone. Fortunately, they weren’t intelligent assholes and had they’re pigeons finish 1st, 2nd, 3rd, AND 4th at unreasonably fast times. If I’m ever trying to scam a pigeon race, which could honestly be a scenario I find my self in down the line, I’m going for 1st and 3rd, maybe 1st and 2nd, but never the top four spots. That’s how suspicions arise.
“their fellow pigeon racers soon began to express serious doubts over the blazing fast times. The pair nervously started plotting to fake the deaths or disappearances of their birds and refused to accept their winnings.”
How hard is it to fake the death of a pigeon? Just chuck the thing against a glass window. Boom. Done. Everyone knows birds don’t see windows as barriers.
via GIPHY
Thankfully, justice was served at the end of the day. Never try to get one by the Shanghai Pigeon Racing Association. You can’t bull shit a bird racer.
“Considering this curious behavior indeed, the Shanghai Pigeon Racing Association filed a lawsuit against the two. This week, Gong and Zhang were both found guilty of fraud by a Shanghai court. Because they declined to accept the cash prizes, their punishment was mitigated, each receiving a three-year suspended sentence. As the mastermind of the scheme, Gong was fined 30,000 yuan while Zhang was fined 20,000 yuan.”
I’d love to take a deep dive into the Shanghai pigeon racing scene for a future “Whoa That’s Weird” episode so be on the lookout for that.
