One hundred fifty corgis from nine countries converged on Vilnius's Vingis Park for the fifth running of Corgi Race Vilnius, a short-legged sprint that has grown, in five years, from a local curiosity into an international fixture on the city's summer calendar. Ninety-four dogs ran the 25-meter dash through qualifiers, semifinals and a final, according to NBC News.
The winner was GG, short for Gustave the Girl Dog, an American entrant defending her title from the year before. Fellow American competitor Mr. Corgington finished second, and Lithuania's own Moka, a two-time former champion, took third. The event drew entrants from Lithuania, Latvia, Poland, Estonia, Germany, Ukraine, the Czech Republic, the United States and Britain.
Racing wasn't the only category. A costume parade featuring 38 dressed-up corgis — outfits ranged from a dinosaur suit to a knight's armor — was swept by a competitor named Amigo, who won over both a four-judge panel and a public Facebook vote, per the Associated Press. Latvian corgis Tora and Rusty tied for the "smartest nose" challenge, and Mr. Corgington added a loudest-bark title to his second-place race finish.
From 40 dogs to 150
"In the first year, we gathered 40 corgis from one city. This year, it's 150," organizer Edvinas Miskas told reporters, per Euronews, crediting word of mouth among corgi owners and the rise of short-legged-dog racing as a genre in its own right — a trend also visible at events like the Corgi World Championships held annually outside Seattle.
The scale is still modest next to a professional sporting event, but organizers say that's the point: a low-stakes, dog-scale spectacle that draws bigger international fields every August without losing its backyard-meetup charm.
Owners who traveled from as far as Britain and Ukraine spent the weekend swapping training tips — mostly involving treats held just out of reach at the finish line — and comparing notes on how their dogs handled the 25-meter sprint, a distance short enough that most races were decided by a nose, or in a few cases a well-timed stumble. Organizers say they expect the field to grow again next year, with inquiries already arriving from corgi clubs in additional countries.
