The 'Tjolijn Bros Of Belgium

[retired]

The twin brothers Erik and Stefaan TJolijn are exponents of the great Andre Vanbruaene strain. The latter is one of the greatest families in the history of pigeondom and the twins were friends of the Belgian maestro. In fact the contents of their colony are almost 100 per cent Vanbruaene.

 

The brothers started the sport in partnership with their grandfather who passed away in 1989. Although successful at the shorter distances they really wanted to conquer the likes of Barcelona but to do so they required the proper bloodlines therefore after some thought their sights settled upon Vanbruaene from Lauwe in West Flanders. Thus they set off from Hasselt to Lauwe with some savings and knocked on the door of Mister Barcelona. Sadly however they came away with no birds and it was approximately 2 years (1991) before they purchased some Vanbruaenes. Happy with what they got the twins were so fired with the strain that they advertised in the Belgian pigeon press to pursue their dream of an assult on Barcelona with pure Andre Vandruaenes.

 

As a result of their committment and press tactic the brothers obtained some more valuably stock containing the bloodlines of the maestro. Thus the basis of their eventual achievements at distance racing were approximately 21 birds born between 1989 and 1991. However they had to wait to see the flowering of their efforts when in 1999 the TJolijn's won the prestigious Golden Wing of the Bruges Barcelona Club and 10th National from Barcelona. Since then they have made steady progress in conquering the mount of Barcelona for happy with their results they made a critical decision to seek an outcross for their Vanbruaene family. After much deliberation the brothers decided to use the renowned Deny strain as a cross and this appears to be successful, although it is early days yet.

 

The Emiel Denys input is a sister of his Wittenbek 303/98 (won 6th National Barcelona 2001 with more than 2 hours). Matched to a son of Golden Wing 1999 one daughter of this pair was send to Japan to enter The International Futurity Race where she won 7th prize International. Another bird from the pair had an excellent result in a one loft race in France. This race was very hard and only 35 birds arrived on the first day. The t Jolijn brothers finished 28th.

 

A few of the brothers Barcelona birds is (a) 114 who was 740th in 2002, 1,836th in 2003, 495th in 2004 and 1,413th in 2005; ( 670 who was 229th in 2003, 1528th in 2004, and 3062nd in 2005; © 113 who was 861st in 2004 and 2,517th in 2005. These are not once only Barcelona flyers as one can see.

 

Thus the strain of Andre Vanbruaene continues to score in the marathon races of Europe in the capable hands of the TJolijn Twins. Some observers believe that we may be witnessing a new revival of this famous strain.Only time will tell.