Changes to Olympic equestrianism

[TheOldTrout]

Saw this and thought I'd share it.
http://eventingnation.com/fei-general-assembly-votes-in-favor-of-sweeping-olympic-format-changes/

 

[Clodagh]

I think it makes sense. Horse sports need to show they still want to be there.

 

[teapot]

Except with three in a team it brings horse welfare into question - you can have a horrific fall xc, trot up the next day, and if you pass, are allowed to sj...

 

[007Equestrian]

I'm completely against this! It's hard enough to be chosen to represent your country, why make it harder again?! Riders with large yards, many top horses and huge financial backing will dominate and 'one horse' riders won't get a look in.

 

[TheOldTrout]

Except with three in a team it brings horse welfare into question - you can have a horrific fall xc, trot up the next day, and if you pass, are allowed to sj...

That struck me too. I did find some of the bullet points a bit confusing - would have liked some worked examples to show it would work. (I tend to be like that about a lot of things, not good about seeing in the abstract!)

 

[smja]

Except with three in a team it brings horse welfare into question - you can have a horrific fall xc, trot up the next day, and if you pass, are allowed to sj...

I think they're relying on the reserve substitution aspect, but if that too incurs penalty points I'm not sure many nations would take it up...
I would like to think that those at the top of our sport would have horse welfare at the centre of all actions, but the reality is that Olympic performance directly translates to money available for trainers, owners, and riders.

 

[sasquatch]

Except with three in a team it brings horse welfare into question - you can have a horrific fall xc, trot up the next day, and if you pass, are allowed to sj...

I'd also be concerned for rider welfare, how many riders would dismiss a broken bone as something to get looked at later, just to go and finish the competition?

I would also be concerned about concussion as well - not just from getting one from a fall and then riding the next day but also something like late onset concussion which can take a few hours to appear. If they were passed as 'fit' after a fall the day before, only for concussion to appear later on and then had another fall the next day as a result, someone could get seriously injured.

And that's before you look into the horse issues.

I can understand wanting more nations to participate, but maybe changing the format can be done in another way? Surely putting more emphasis on individuals, rather than teams, would be the way to get more participation from other nations?

I also don't understand how using a substitute is fair - say you had a rider who had a horse that was good at dressage and XC, then they were passed unfit for whatever reason before jumping. Whilst there's a penalty for having to substitute, if you're within say 12 faults of 1st place, and the team in first also have to substitute/have penalties for not completing (so you both gain 100 penalty points), what would stop a team substituting for a horse and rider who are very strong showjumping?
Surely a fresh horse doing the SJ because it's been substituted will do better than one that had a fall or had 3 refusals the day before?
If that's the case, surely the substitutes should have to enter the individual competition, and if they are needed their individual score is used rather than just adding to whatever score has already been achieved by the team. Or have I read something wrong somewhere?

 

[claracanter]

I can see they want to encourage smaller nations, but I don't think this is the way to do it. This puts far too much pressure on teams and makes selection even harder

 

[rachk89]

I'm completely against this! It's hard enough to be chosen to represent your country, why make it harder again?! Riders with large yards, many top horses and huge financial backing will dominate and 'one horse' riders won't get a look in.

It was never easy anyway, especially to get onto the team. I think more individuals should be allowed really, maybe not even have teams, just the best individuals and limit it to say 5-6 per country. Then for the 'team' score, take the top 3. Doesnt matter who it is then.

Or maybe we should go back to what the Olympics was originally for, amateurs.

 

[Lanky Loll]

It's awful for plenty of reasons but especially welfare. With the reserve in the SJ for example, the 3rd rider could be unfit on day 3 so the reserve pulled in, which hasn't had the experience of jumping the previous 2 days and chucked into the much tougher final day course for less experience nations/combinations this could be a disaster.
The SJ riders had collectively come up with a workable 4 rider system that didn't increase the number of teams but DID increase the number of individuals thus allowing more countries to be represented (i.e those that only have 1 or 2 riders competing at the required level would have more opportunities to qualify) but it's all been totally ignored. The FEI ignoring the competitors again

 

[TheOldTrout]

Are these changes only for the Olympics, does anyone know? Will they also apply to continental (European, pan-American) championships and the WEG? And qualifying competitions - will a fall no longer mean elimination if you pass the trot up?
I'm really not sure what the changes are supposed to achieve...

 

[Goldenstar]

I would not trust the FEI to make a cheese sandwich in a sensible fashion .

 

[Fiona]

The eventing changes are the only ones I have read in detail, and I'm definitely not in favour. It seems like all the arguments that GB, France, Germany etc put forward have all been ignored, and the FEI original suggestions all pushed through with no compromise.

And the 3* cross country

Fiona

 

[Fiona]

I would not trust the FEI to make a cheese sandwich in a sensible fashion .

Lol

Fiona

 

[teapot]

And the 3* cross country

Tbf it always was seen as a 3* xc course, only Rio had a designed who built to max specs and technicality allowed, and look what happened.

Thing that annoys me the most if 'we must have more nations, it's the Olympics etc'. Why? We're taking a dangerous sport, not table tennis. It puts the sport in a far worse light having lesser nations try to get home, and fail, than limiting it to the top 15 nations or whatever.

I'm completely against this! It's hard enough to be chosen to represent your country, why make it harder again?! Riders with large yards, many top horses and huge financial backing will dominate and 'one horse' riders won't get a look in.

Because that doesn't happen already?!

 

[Fiona]

I don't think its actually been set down in the rules as a 3* XC before though teapot, it was an assumption after Athens that the Olympic xc wouldn't be built to the full 4* specifications. Now its official ...

I wonder will the world championships follow suit?? If so then Badminton will really be the 'world championships'

Fiona

 

[Lanky Loll]

Thing that annoys me the most if 'we must have more nations, it's the Olympics etc'. Why? We're taking a dangerous sport, not table tennis. It puts the sport in a far worse light having lesser nations try to get home, and fail, than limiting it to the top 15 nations or whatever.

Which was why the riders proposal which included more individual slots made sense. Less pressure on the countries with less experienced riders to make a team as they could send their best individual instead.

 

[TheOldTrout]

For the 3* - 4* x-country question, is there a reason the course can't have a number of fences with a 4* direct route and a 3* indirect route? So the lesser nations' competitors could take the longer but easier route and the ones chasing medals could do the shorter, harder route?

 

[teapot]

I don't think its actually been set down in the rules as a 3* XC before though teapot, it was an assumption after Athens that the Olympic xc wouldn't be built to the full 4* specifications. Now its official ...

That's a point... Grrr.

 

[sasquatch]

are there changes to SJ as well? (and I have maybe not seen them if they've been posted!)

Cian O'Connor seems to have gone on a bit of a rant on his FB page.

 

[Fiona]

I don't think its actually been set down in the rules as a 3* XC before though teapot, it was an assumption after Athens that the Olympic xc wouldn't be built to the full 4* specifications. Now its official ...

I wonder will the world championships follow suit?? If so then Badminton will really be the 'world championships'

Fiona

Sorry for quoting myself, but did anyone read the news item on this in H&H yesterday. There is a proposal that the World Championships run at same level as Olympics ie 3*

Can't see riders being too pleased

Fiona

 

[ihatework]

I don't understand why you wouldn't just say each qualified nation can put forward 'X' qualified individuals. Then if you want a team result too you take the top 3 scores from the individuals.

And IMO it should be 4*. Olympics should be the very top of the sporting level.
By all means have 3* long routes for safety but ultimately the best person in the world should win. And a competitive 3* horse is not always a competitive 4* horse.

It's not like the athletics organisation say, for example, Russian long distance runners aren't as good as Kenyans so let's reduce the distance from 10k to 8k!

 

[teapot]

Sorry for quoting myself, but did anyone read the news item on this in H&H yesterday. There is a proposal that the World Championships run at same level as Olympics ie 3*

Can't see riders being too pleased

Fiona

Been confirmed that WEG won't be a 4* xc

It's not like the athletics organisation say, for example, Russian long distance runners aren't as good as Kenyans so let's reduce the distance from 10k to 8k!

Exactly!

 

[Fiona]

Saw that on e venting teapot Bummer. ..

Fiona

 

[smja]

I do think it's very odd, especially when we have to explain to non-horsey people that the world champs/Olympics aren't the top level of the sport... how can we expect non-horsey people to be interested in watching/supporting if we make it so confusing (and contrary to the structure of most other sports)?

 

[Orangehorse]

I don't understand why you wouldn't just say each qualified nation can put forward 'X' qualified individuals. Then if you want a team result too you take the top 3 scores from the individuals.

And IMO it should be 4*. Olympics should be the very top of the sporting level.
By all means have 3* long routes for safety but ultimately the best person in the world should win. And a competitive 3* horse is not always a competitive 4* horse.

It's not like the athletics organisation say, for example, Russian long distance runners aren't as good as Kenyans so let's reduce the distance from 10k to 8k!

That is the good idea!

It all sounds a bit dubious to me. A mess and a muddle. Infuriating that riders' views do not seem to have been taken into account.

Once upon a time at the Olympics all the fences were maximum height and spread, but this is going back quite a long way.

 

[SusannaF]

I would not trust the FEI to make a cheese sandwich in a sensible fashion .

Ha!

Yes. I mean, it's great to open up the competition to more nations, but what if it ends up looking like the Modern Pentathlon. That was so bad in London that I couldn't bring myself to watch it at Rio...

 

[Lizzie66]

This will not encourage nations to send younger more inexperienced riders to the Olympics. In a team of 4 you can carry one on this basis.

An alternative would be to run the team and individual as separate competitions. You could also potentially create a medal structure, one for team, one for individuals from the team and one for individuals.

This would enable the big eventing nations to enter their team of 4 in the team competition plus say 1 or 2 in the individual competition and the smaller nations could enter up to 3 or even 4 in the individual completion. All would still have to meet the relevant qualifying standard.

Within the team competition then competitors would be competing for both a team medal and individual medal as per currently.

Yes the big nations could still end up winning 3 gold medals as 5th or 6th rank Kiwi, German, Brit are still likely to be as strong or stronger than many of the smaller nations such as Japan, Brazil etc but it would certainly give them a better chance of winning a medal than the either the current format or the new proposed format

 

[popsdosh]

This will not encourage nations to send younger more inexperienced riders to the Olympics. In a team of 4 you can carry one on this basis.

An alternative would be to run the team and individual as separate competitions. You could also potentially create a medal structure, one for team, one for individuals from the team and one for individuals.

This would enable the big eventing nations to enter their team of 4 in the team competition plus say 1 or 2 in the individual competition and the smaller nations could enter up to 3 or even 4 in the individual completion. All would still have to meet the relevant qualifying standard.

Within the team competition then competitors would be competing for both a team medal and individual medal as per currently.

Yes the big nations could still end up winning 3 gold medals as 5th or 6th rank Kiwi, German, Brit are still likely to be as strong or stronger than many of the smaller nations such as Japan, Brazil etc but it would certainly give them a better chance of winning a medal than the either the current format or the new proposed format

It is not about winning medals!!
You may be missing the point somewhat as the whole ethos behind the changes is to cut down the number of horses competing from the bigger nations to make space for lesser nations horses ,the olympics themselves consider it is getting to unwieldy the high numbers and expensive to stage. JUst by pushing all the dressage into one day will ultimately limit the numbers taking part. This change by the FEI is to try and keep horse sport in general part of the olympics. If you think the expense is not something thats an issue just look at the financial problems the WEG get into and my how countries are queing up to stage them . I must admit if they are having to dumb them down to accommodate the olympics maybe it is time they were not involved. If they indeed do the same at WEG level then that will be a nail in their coffin as well as riders will save their best horses for the big 4* s where theres some major money to win, and know they can win the championships with a top 3* horse

 

[Lizzie66]

It is not about winning medals!!
You may be missing the point somewhat as the whole ethos behind the changes is to cut down the number of horses competing from the bigger nations to make space for lesser nations horses ,the olympics themselves consider it is getting to unwieldy the high numbers and expensive to stage. JUst by pushing all the dressage into one day will ultimately limit the numbers taking part. This change by the FEI is to try and keep horse sport in general part of the olympics. If you think the expense is not something thats an issue just look at the financial problems the WEG get into and my how countries are queing up to stage them . I must admit if they are having to dumb them down to accommodate the olympics maybe it is time they were not involved. If they indeed do the same at WEG level then that will be a nail in their coffin as well as riders will save their best horses for the big 4* s where theres some major money to win, and know they can win the championships with a top 3* horse

With respect It is not all about the cost or the number of horses.

It is largely about the Olympics trying to be inclusive and not restricting opportunities to a smaller number of nations.

The splitting of the event into Team / Team Individual / Individual would mean that the top names are likely to be within the Team section and kept out of the Individual. This would enable smaller Nations that only have one or two top riders to be able to be more competitive. The dressage has been moved to one day, so you could easily have Team Dressage one day and Individual Dressage across the two days. You could limit Team Qualifying Number to 16 teams of 4 and then Nations with a Team can only have 1 individual and Nations without a Team can have up to 3. This would enable 64 team members and 136 individual members.

A large proportion of the cost goes into the building of the course and facilities, the actual use of them is a hugely lower proportion and with effectively an additional competition you could run them either in parallel or even consecutively (or small over lap) - ie SJ of Team could overlap with dressage of Individual (or vice versa) and thereby increase your revenues from additional ticket sales