Memories of Nazgul the Wolfdog Who Crashed Olympics Race

A wolfdog named Nazgul crashed the Olympics last week when he escaped his enclosure and chased down a pair of skiers just as they crossed the finish line. Nazgul had slipped out of his indoor kennel, then squeezed past the eight-foot-tall fence separating him from Olympic glory, then dashed into the race. 

“He was crying this morning more than normal because he was seeing us leaving — and I think he just wanted to follow us,” dog owner Alice Varesco tells NPR. “He always looks for people.”

He found them. Specifically, Nazgul found the women’s cross-country preliminary qualifying round just as a pair of skiers were schussing toward the finish line. He burst into a sprint but came up short, finishing a close third.

“I was like, ‘Am I hallucinating?’” wondered Tena Hadzic, the Croatian skier at the homestretch. “I don't know what I should do, because maybe he could attack me, bite me.”

He didn’t bite either skier, nor did he affect the outcome of the race, but the race official who apprehended Nazgul at the end said he got a “little bite” from the “nervous” dog. No real harm done. One of the race officials happened to know the Varescos, and Nazgul was safely returned to his home.

The furry competitor is a two-year-old, 65-pound Czechoslovakian wolfdog. The breed descends from a bloodline developed in the 1950s, when a German shepherd was crossed with a Carpathian grey wolf. The resultant breed has the temperament and trainability of the shepherd and the strength and size of a wolf.

The owners named him Nazgul, after one of the evil characters from Lord of the Rings, because they wanted something “powerful and scary,” according to Varesco. Following his brief touch with fame, the Varesco’s placed a sign over his (now secured) enclosure: “Nazgul World Champion Wolfdog.”

Photo credit: nbcolympics.com