Nineteen countries, 160 borrowed Walloon heifers, 48 Belgian kitchen tables. Kyla Lewis won the Holstein title and Best Presenter — the hardest double on the card. Here’s every winner from Battice.
Nineteen countries sent their best young cattle people to a corner of eastern Belgium this week, and the 24th Young Breeders School delivered exactly what it always does — five days of clipper burn, judging reasons and homestay breakfasts, then two days where it all gets scored in front of a crowd.
The 2026 edition drew 160 young people from 19 nations, with more than 160 heifers supplied by Walloon breeders and 48 local families hosting roughly 80% of the participants, according to the Foire Agricole de Battice, which stages the competition weekend alongside its fair on September 5 and 6. Colombia was among the teams on the ground this year — a reminder that a school launched in 1999 for Belgian, Dutch, French and German kids has quietly gone global.
The format that makes it work
YBS isn’t a show with a youth class bolted on. It’s a school first. Participants aged 13 to 25 spend three days of training on washing, bedding, feeding, clipping, judging and showmanship, plus classroom work on marketing and photography, before two days of competition, as the organizing Association Wallonne des Éleveurs lays out. Training runs in French, German, English and Dutch. Visiting competitors are matched to Walloon heifers by age and size — nobody gets an advantage because they hauled their own good one.
Two breed streams run in parallel: Holstein, plus a Belgian Blue division that gives the home country’s beef breed its own clipping, presentation and judging awards. That dual-breed structure is unusual in international youth competition, and it’s the reason the Walloon and Belgian Blue results below read like a separate contest.
Last year’s edition belonged to Canada, with Quebec’s Ariane Lebel taking overall and Audrey Labbé reserve. This year the individual honours spread wider.
2026 Winners — Holstein
Individual Category: 1. Kyla Lewis · 2. Koralie Naud · 3. Lukas Büeler
Best Clipper: 1. Marina Lamontagne Faucher · 2. Koralie Naud · 3. Lukas Büeler
Best Presenter: 1. Kyla Lewis · 2. Logan Harbaugh · 3. Nina Schmidt
Best Team: 1. The Netherlands · 2. Poland · 3. Switzerland
Best Judge: 1. Kristiana Jonase · 2. Ava Hebgen · 3. Adrien Bacro
Leaders’ Prize: Samuel Grüber
Best Young Under 16: Nina Schmidt
Best Walloon: Antoine Spriet
Best Holstein Exhibitor: Jonas Pussemier
2026 Winners — Belgian Blue
Individual Category: 1. Niels De Fauw · 2. Robin Englebert · 3. René Goossens
Best Clipper: 1. François Pochet · 2. Niels De Fauw · 3. René Goossens
Best Presenter: 1. Robin Englebert · 2. Niels De Fauw · 3. René Goossens
Best Team: 1. Belgian Blue Vision · 2. Belgian Blue Generation · 3. Belgian Blue Evolution
Best Judge: 1. René Goossens · 2. François Pochet · 3. Maël Guebenne
Leaders’ Prize: François Pochet
Best Young Under 16: Maël Guebenne
Best Walloon: Robin Englebert
Results as posted by YBS – Young Breeders School.
What the scoreboard actually says
Kyla Lewis is the story of the week — winning the Holstein individual title and Best Presenter is the hardest double on the card, because presentation scores travel with you through every stage of evaluation. Koralie Naud’s second overall plus second in clipping, and Marina Lamontagne Faucher’s clipper win, say the North American clipping pipeline is still shipping finished product to Europe. Lukas Büeler landed on both the individual and clipper podiums. And on the judging side, Kristiana Jonase over Ava Hebgen and Adrien Bacro was decided by reasons, not eyeballs — that’s a skill you can’t cram for on a homestay week.
The team result is the one to watch. The Netherlands over Poland and Switzerland is a Dutch program doing what Dutch programs do, but Poland in second is a genuine shift in the European youth pecking order.
Niels De Fauw and Robin Englebert split the Belgian Blue honours, with René Goossens on three separate podiums and François Pochet taking both the clipping title and the leaders’ prize — the award that recognizes the kid other kids follow.
Why this matters past the ribbon
Every one of these names is a future herd manager, classifier, semen rep or judge. The school has run more than 2,000 young breeders through it since 1999, and the 48 Walloon families who put strangers’ kids at their kitchen table are doing more for the international genetics trade than most marketing budgets ever will.
The scoreboard resets next September. The contact list doesn’t.
Key Takeaways
- Kyla Lewis pulled the individual Holstein title and Best Presenter in the same week — presentation scores follow you through every stage of evaluation, which is why that pairing is the hardest one on the card.
- Visiting competitors are assigned Walloon heifers by age and size, so nobody wins at Battice because they hauled a better calf. If your kid can clip, present and give reasons, the animal isn’t the excuse.
- The Netherlands over Poland and Switzerland is the team result to watch. Poland finishing second says the European youth pecking order is moving, and North American clipping still lands on the podium.
- Forty-eight host families and 160 loaned heifers put 160 young people from 19 countries into each other’s contact lists. That network sells more genetics over the next 20 years than any ad campaign will.
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