:eek:
say WHAT!
this really isn’t a prank?
I have problems with a lot of the proposed, but significantly this change stands out as just a REALLY BAD IDEA.
“In the jumping phases, the time of the round would be added for all team members so that a faster round of one team member could counterbalance a slower round of another member.”
Article:
This is not an April Fool’s joke, folks. The FEI is set to examine a list of proposed changes later this month at the FEI Sports Forum in Switzerland that would enact sweeping overhauls to eventing at the Olympic, championship and all FEI levels.
This comes after the FEI hired Charles Barnett, former director of Ascot Racecourse, to “conduct an audit into eventing with the purpose of identifying factors that may affect eventing as an Olympic sport.”
You can read all the background on why the FEI is proposing these changes at the beginning of the document at this link. But let’s jump right in, shall we?
Olympics and FEI championships
The FEI is proposing a complete separation of team and individual competitions at the Olympics and FEI championships, with both the team and individual portion running concurrently and athletes only being permitted to participate in one of these.
Teams would compete at the the three-star level at championships, while individuals would complete at the four-star level at championships. The Olympic Games would allot 65 total slots for athletes in eventing, with 40 to 45 places for the team competition and 25 to 20 for the individual competition.
Team competitions would run over a three-star level cross country course and use four-star level dressage and jumping tests, with teams being a maximum of three members with no drop score. One reserve horse per team would be allowed. All team members would ride one after the other in all three phases.
In the jumping phases, the time of the round would be added for all team members “so that a faster round of one team member could counterbalance a slower round of another member.”
Under this new proposed format, only individual competitors would use four-star level cross country, dressage and jumping tests at championships, with a maximum of three athletes per nation allowed.
Levels and formats
The FEI is also proposing that the Classics CCI4* circuit for individuals be totally separated from an Olympic and Championship circuit for teams. As outlined above, team competitions at the Olympics and WEG would run over three-star level cross country “for the development of the sport,” while the “true CCI4* level” would be reserved for individual competitions only.
Part of the idea behind proposing this is to allow qualification for championships to take place on the same level as the competition, as opposed to at a lower level as it does now. There would be increased qualification requirements for the CCI4* level on both the Classics circuit and at FEI championships for individuals.
The FEI is also proposing creating a new international level for children/ponies at 1.05 meter height on cross country “that could also be very useful for and developing nations.” This new level would become the one-star level, with all other levels being upgraded accordingly, i.e. 1 star becomes 2 star, 3 star becomes 4 star, and 4 star becomes 5 star (EN called it!).
Merging the CIC*/CCI* and CIC2*/CCI2* levels is also outlined in the proposal, as is adding a CIC4* format.
New cross country penalties
A new penalty system for cross country is also slated to be discussed, i.e. 10 points for the first refusal on course, 30 (4o) for the second refusal.
The FEI is also proposing giving 5 penalties for “knocking flags on skinny, narrow, corners fences. Clearly a completely different approach from course designers (allowing more space between flags) must allow the possibility, for a straight horse when jumping correctly, to jump without touching flags.”
Re-naming the sport
And, in some sort of grand finale, the report ends by proposing three options to rename eventing, which presumably are meant to align with the FEI core objective to “ensure the competition to be the ‘best sport entertainment’ — attractive, modern, TV and spectator friendly.”
The three proposed new names (and I promise we are not making this up) are: Equestrian triathlon, Equestrathon, Tri-equathlon. Try saying that last one three times fast. Actually, try saying any of them three times fast.
Twitter is already buzzing with what implementing even a fraction of these proposed overhauls could mean for the sport. Now it’s your turn to weigh in, EN. Check out the proposal in full — which will be presented at the FEI Sports Forum in Switzerland on April 27 — at this link and leave your thoughts in the comments.
And I thought getting rid of the long format was a bad idea. This is making that look like a nudge in the wrong direction.
Sounds like it’s about time for eventing to form our own international governing organization and bid good riddance to the FEI.
It would almost certainly mean losing the Olympics, but that would be far better than conforming to the idiocy outlined in the article.
There are so many bad ideas there that I don’t know where to begin.
Those names!
Surely noone thinks any of them are a good idea.
I cannot pronounce 2 out of the three! :mad:
For the life of me, I cannot understand what the FEI was smoking when they came up with all of this? :eek:
re: technical rules – the higher penalties for refusal and the knocking a flag down i can understand… but why the changes to team/individual and formatting the new one star??
this part,
Saddlery
Cross Country bits is an item
for discussion in relation to
Risk management and horse
welfare. It is felt that strong bitting used
by less experienced riders can affect the ability
of the horse to focus on th
e fence and use his natural abilities to solve the jumping
question
and how is that enforced?
I imagine they could come up with illegal bits for xc and institute a bit check, or somehow think they can “qualify” a rider to use a certain bit? Maybe only allow certain bits at 3* and 4*? Who knows. I can’t figure out where they came up with some of this anyway!
The funny thing, this whole thing appears to be packaged largely as a way to address safety concerns related to horse falls on XC … And yet there isn’t a single thing on that list that actually is going to reduce the likelihood of a fall. It’s all a bunch of ways to keep the IOC happy.
I agree with the OP that adding together XC times of team competitors is a really, really bad idea.
I like the flag rule. And maybe the bit rule (there can be some very nasty big bits out there in the hands of less experienced riders). That is about it.
The sj time change has little logic. And separating the individual and team at the Olympics? I need more time to process that…
Name change? How silly! The only one that could make even remote sense is the Equestrian Triatholon. But even that is silly because then people would think that we swim our horses and put put wheels on them!
I want a 30 speed horse, and not this old 5 speed version I currently have…
I think I’m going to be sick to my stomach.
[QUOTE=pcwertb;8104263]
I imagine they could come up with illegal bits for xc and institute a bit check, or somehow think they can “qualify” a rider to use a certain bit? Maybe only allow certain bits at 3* and 4*? Who knows. I can’t figure out where they came up with some of this anyway![/QUOTE]
the language of it is troubling, not the idea. the language implicates that they will decide who is inexperienced and therein, the penalty will appear.
now, if they were going to do away with all gag bits, fine - that’s easy, black and white. but “no gag bits for inexperienced riders”… er… do they decide by show records, or results? do they decide by age?
i like the flag idea, and the bit idea – but not the language behind it. any bit can be distracting, at any moment.
Under the FEI, eventing will eventually become that crap they ran in Florida this past winter.
I don’t necessarily mind the flag rule. Everyone talks about making eventing not a dressage competition, and this would certainly increase the influence of x-country.
The rest of it is complete BS. I’m still not convinced the name change idea isn’t a really bad joke.
They could go back to Combined Training. That’s what it is.
Why would the FEI want to make their Championships and Olympics only 3* for XC? I could see doing it as a one off for the Olympics (they already do something similar anyway), but the WEG? Would they have to build both a 3* for the teams and a 4* for the Individual? If not, what’s Championship level about a 3* XC WEG? And since both the dressage and sj would be 4* level, doesn’t that emphasize dressage and sj even more than they are now. It certainly seems to de-emphasize the importance of XC.
In what other sport would the Olympics and World Championships be easier than the best recognized individual competitions?
If the question of XC bits is a matter of horse welfare, how come they aren’t looking at bitting in Show Jumping?
I notice that there is no mention of the dressage coefficient in these proposed changes.
I’m not sure why people are commenting on the bits, which seems like the least interesting (horrifying) piece of this puzzle.
The biggest issue to me is the change of the Olympic/WEG format. A bit of history - the Olympics restated the rules back in the early 90’s to state that yo couldn’t win 2 medals for one competition. That’s when they temporarily separated the individual eventing competition for the teams. Both were 4*s but they were separate. I watched it myself in Atlanta. From a spectator standpoint, it was terrible. Who cares who wins the olympic gold if they aren’t competing against all of the best of the best? It just made no sense and you were left feeling like it wasn’t the “real” winner (it was Blyth Tait on Reddy Teddy if I recall. He was great but it would have been nice to see how he stacked up against the #1 scorer of the team event, who received no recognition at all.)
