Federation Equestre Internationale News 18 October 2001

FEI EUROPEAN EVENTING CHAMPIONSHIP

Double Gold for Great Britain

The 2001 FEI European Eventing Championship was held in the beautiful town of Pau (FRA) in the South-West of France from 11 to 14 October 2001. France had not organized such a championship for 30 years, the last time in 1963 at the Haras du Pin.

Composed of Jeanette Brakewell / Over to You, Pippa Funnel / Supreme Rock, Leslie Law / Shear H20 and William Fox Pitt/ Stunning, the British team led the competition from the start and earned the European title for the fourth consecutive time, and for the 17th time since the creation of the Championship in 1953. The host team France earned a well-deserved silver medal, followed by the Italian team, who earned its first ever medal in an European Eventing Championship.

Pippa Funnell (GBR) and the 15 years old Irish horse Supreme Rock renewed their European title and won the individual gold, despite a rail down in the jumping test. The Greek Heidi Antikazides, who was well placed for a silver medal also had a fence down and lost her place on the podium. The same happened to William Fox Pitt (GBR) and Stunning, who could hope for a bronze medal. Inken Johansen (GER) and the well-named Brilliante earned the silver, followed by Enrique Sarasola on the French grey Dopé Doux, who brought home the first medal ever for Spain in an Eventing Championship. Former jumping rider of a high level, he competed for Spain at the Barcelona Olympic Games in 1992.

A crowd of 40.000 spectators attended the cross country on the Saturday and the 10.000 seats of arena were sold out for the Jumping test on Sunday.

FINAL OF THE TOP TEN OF THE FEI/GANDINI WORLD JUMPING IN GENEVA (SUI)

The Top Ten Final, reserved to the best 10 riders of the FEI/Gandini World Jumping Rankings will take place on Saturday 8 December 2001 in Geneva (SUI). A special edition of the World Computer list will be established on 18 November (i.e. including Stuttgart, GER) to decide on the participation field.

The Final will be held over two rounds, without jump-off. The first round will be Table A and include 10 to 12 obstacles (1 or 2 combinations). The height will be 155 cm and the speed 375 m/min. The second round will be Table A against the cock and include 8 to 10 obstacles about 145 cm high. The riders may choose if they want to ride the same or a different horse in the two rounds. The starting order will be from the Top 10 to Top 1 of the World Rankings in the first round, and reverse order of the first round’s results in the second round. The Final classification will be obtained by adding the penalty points of the two rounds. The time of the second round will be taken into account in case of a tie.

Supported by Rolex, the FEI/Gandini Top Ten Final will have a total of 140.000 Swiss francs (35.000 to the winner).

Visit www.concours-hippique.ch

THOMAS VELIN TRIUMPHANT IN WORLD CUP OSLO (NOR)

An enthusiastic crowd packed Oslo’s impressive indoor Spektrum Arena to watch the opening round of the 2001/2002 FEI World Cup Jumping Series on 13 October 2001.

A particularly tough and technical course insured that only two riders made it through to the jump off – Denmarks’s Thomas Velin riding the bay stallion Equest Carnute and Germany’s Rene Tebbel riding Meurer’s le Patron.

Rene was first to go and had no choice but to lay down the challenge to Thomas and try to go fast and clear, unfortunately for Rene his strategy resulted in two fences down and a very costly eight penalties. Rising star Thomas Velin took advantage of Rene’s errors, jumping a foot-perfect clear round to secure the opening competition of the 2001/2002 series.

Thomas has his sights set on the World Cup Jumping Final (this year to be held in Leipzig in May 2002) and was clearly delighted with the win: “My horse jumped fantastically well and I’m really pleased with this win.”

Visit the new World Cup News section of the FEI website www.horsesport.org

EVENTING COMMITTEE MEETING

The Eventing Committee met in Pau (FRA) on the occasion of the very successful Eventing European Championships to finalize all the discussion items raised during the year and debated at the various open forums and trial events.

The initial working statement on the Olympic format for 2004 and future changes to Eventing was finalised by the Committee.

The final report was partially presented and explained to the Open Forum which was organised in Pau as per the working statement. Following the pertinent comments made during this forum, the Committee reviewed its initial proposal of elimination after one fall in the Cross Country test.

This final report will be published in the next few days.

The Committee decided after much discussion to maintain its proposal on the Olympic Format which includes 2 Jumping tests after the Cross Country test to allow to differentiate the team and the Individual classification. This decision was carefully weighted taking into consideration the different trial events which had taken place in Burghley and in Bonn Rodderberg in the previous month. The IOC Executive Board provided a positive response on this format when asked for their opinion earlier this month.

The Committee also considered at length the new competition structure for Eventing which included the last corrections to the new Eventing Dressage tests for all levels and categories of events which will be enforced next year.

It was agreed to adopt the Show Jumping rules as much as possible in particular in regard to scoring, in order to improve Jumping in Eventing.

The Committee also studied the work that had been done for the establishment of an FEI Eventing Safety Programme and FEI Eventing Database. Explanations on these two major issues will be distributed to NFs in the next week.

The FEI Eventing Committee also approved a request from the British Eventing/GBR NF for newly developed frangible pins to be used on cross country fences at international events in Great Britain in 2002. The Committee also agreed that the penalty for any pin being broken would be elimination, in view of the fact that the object of introducing the pins is to make horse falls less serious.

The Committee also had a long session with its appointed Rules Advisor, Mr Hugh Thomas to prepare the statutory Eventing Rules revision to include all modifications made to date in a comprehensive system. The proposed revision will be distributed to NFs in time for comments for the 2002 General Assembly.

During the meeting, the Committee had a number of productive meetings: with the International Eventing Officials Club (IEOC) on future cooperation, and a meeting with the FEI TV consultant, Mr Alastair Martin Bird on solutions to broadcast Eventing.

ERRATUM FEI PRESS NEWS 28: BOLIVARIAN GAMES

Juan Camilo Borrero (COL) on Coliseu won the individual gold medal in Jumping, not Rodrigo Diaz on Amoante, as published in the FEI Press News 28/01, who earned the bronze.

JEREZ 2002 TEST EVENT: DOPE TESTING RESULTS

In cooperation with the World Anti-Doping Agency(WADA)/Agence Mondial Anti-Doping(ADA) and the Drug Free Sports Consortium, the FEI arranged for dope testing of riders the day before competitions began at the CCI** test event from 28 to 30 September in Jerez de la Frontera (ESP).

Riders were tested under the IOC rules for out-of-competition dope testing. The results from the tests were all negative.

JEREZ 2002 WEG, MEETING OF THE CHEFS DE MISSION

The Organising Committee of the World Equestrian Games announces an information meeting of the National Federations’ Chefs de Mission on 12 December 2001 in Jerez.

The NFs should communicate their intention to participate to the Games, specifying the discipline, no later than 30 October 2001 to the Organising Committee. For more information, please contact info@jerez2002weg.com.

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