Is there a reason why no woman are running?
Maybe no olympic participation for some years is the concession the sport will have to make.
These guys left the entirety of FEI/USEF because of horse welfare issues…
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A long enough boycott sure as shit could change that. A governing body with no athletes participating in the sport for long enough is not going to continue forever.
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That’s a possibility. But we’d want to do this with a leadership that represents the athletes and other stakeholders in the sport.
I hope that people here can grasp how important it is that the current leadership is ousted. They’re acting illegally and without consulting anyone.
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It sounds like that’s the only ticket out of the current mess, is to remove the guys who put you there, or to start a new organization without them and let them burn. If the organization as a whole all feels this way, it really shouldn’t be that hard to keep participation in the events (unsanctioned or whatever it would be called) up.
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Based on all the fuss in past at the FEI to make equestrianism IOC compliant, would a formal letter of complaint from national governing bodies to the IOC about the lack of consultation before these changes were announced, the lack of transparency in governance and the farcical gender bias in the forthcoming elections, be a useful step to take? Only the IOC seems to have some nominal control over the current UIPM.
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If UIPM removes riding from Modern Pentathlon, then another organization promoting a competition including running, swimming, shooting, fencing, and riding would technically be promoting an entirely different sport. Maybe that is a way around UIPM’s obstructionism?
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The Danish federation has already taken up a legal action. From what I understand, another (powerful) NF also has something in the works.
There is no getting around the fact that the Executive Board does not have the authority to replace any one of the five sports described in the definition of modern pentathlon per the UIPM’s constitution. It’s spelled out very clearly in the by-laws.
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Yes and no.
One of the fundamental points I’ve been trying to make here - and maybe I haven’t been clear - is that the leadership of a sport federation should be expected to follow the longstanding rules of the organization. Those rules are in place to prevent rogue actions from impacting the sport and its participants.
The UIPM has a defined rule book and governance policies in place. We have a situation in which the president and some number of board members - 7 or 8, I don’t know the number - acted illegally and without authority. Those individuals need to resign or be forced out. The entire organization doesn’t need to be scrapped due to their illegal actions.
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What equestrian changes do the athletes want to see that leadership is refusing to implement?
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The IOC isn’t without fault in this mess either IMO. Yes, there needs to be an overhaul of the rules in general, but I think a good portion of the mess at Tokyo was a problem with the venue. The host city provided a great equestrian complex with safe footing, and pentathlon is not required to use that venue for the equestrian phase? That’s an IOC controlled welfare issue IMO.
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I don’t think jumping on grass is inherently a welfare issue though … IF the riding is competent and the horses are appropriately equipped (studs if needed, and such) jumping on grass is fine. The main problem is that the considerable degree of riding skill needed to catch-ride over 4’ fences just wasn’t there. I doubt if it would’ve gone all that much better on fancy GGT footing… maybe slightly, since the horses would’ve been less likely to slip when they weren’t properly balanced in the turns, but I bet it still would’ve been a metaphorical bloodbath.
I was under the impression that the pentathlon riding phase used the space they did due to proximity to the other phases of the pentathlon competition, but maybe that was just an assumption on my part. Was the pentathlon jumping not held in the regular equestrian arenas because the IOC wouldn’t allow it (or because the FEI had total jurisdiction over those venues)?
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Basically, the athletes want to align horse welfare and rider safety with FEI standards.
In addition to that, athletes want a higher standard for rider competence. As it is now, NFs can sign off on their athletes riding permission. Some NFs - like Hungary and GB - are very strict. Others, like the US, will sign off on anyone who asks.
Athletes are tired of seeing crappy riders getting around on packers and getting high scores. Athletes are tired of being in a warm up ring with coaches who can’t ride screaming at athletes who can’t ride.
Athletes are really, really tired of the cronyism that makes the officials turn a blind eye to incompetence.
If you think the public doesn’t like the riding standards in pentathlon, you should talk to the athletes about it. They really, really hate it but have been unable to do anything about it with the entrenched leadership.
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This has a lot to do with logistics and where events are placed around the area. Pentathlon has been rather idiotically trying to place all the events in one stadium, with a portable pool which is a boondoggle of an expense for any venue bidding to host a world championships. Fencing can’t be done outdoors - the utterly stupid ‘bonus round’ is done outside as a ‘showcase’ which absolutely no one including the athletes finds interesting or of value - so that has to have a separate venue. It’s all just dumb because pentathlon swimming is a series of 200m heats where you’re just swimming for time so it’s not like a race. (The times aren’t anywhere close to elite in terms of swimming.)
Also, for pentathlon, the tradition is to have the final event, the laser run, in the same venue as the riding so you can go from one to the other with a relatively short break in between. Those events are the two most exciting in terms of spectators so they fit well together in sequence.
At the Olympics, the IFs have a lot of control over their venues and while it’s possible that pentathlon could share the equestrian site with FEI, it probably wouldn’t fit with the schedule.
Keep in mind that a Games (if you’re an athlete) is usually an endless series of overlong bus rides punctuated by occasional bursts of sport. It does take away from the competition day.
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And the athletes would agree with this.
Most top level pentathlon competitions have jumps in the 1m - 1.10m range. The riders simply don’t know how to successfully do a 1.20m course - it’s a big step up and they’re not prepared for it.
Again, this is the fault of the old guys at UIPM. Even at the athlete call on Friday (the UIPM finally deigned to speak to its community) the old guys were actually saying that they couldn’t have smaller jumps at the Olympics. This says a lot about their mindset. Of course, if you know anything at all about horses and jumping, you know that you could set a 90cm track that a top pro would be challenged on. But these guys don’t know enough to know that.
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How many athletes are we talking on each side? Clearly there are some athletes who don’t want the riding phase since they can’t be bothered to learn how to do it, so how many athletes are on each side of the divide between keeping the equestrian phase and dumping it?
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If we go by the athlete call last week, there are no athletes that don’t want riding. One spoke sort of in support of the decision but it was fairly obvious that the athlete was put up to it by the NF.
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I think the plot gets lost when a black and white question is asked. Consider that those that are good at it want it in no matter what and those that are bad at it are either too stupid to realize or care they are damaging horses and equestrian sport for everyone, or they see it as a kind of lottery which can do their final score some good it they get a lucky draw.
A better group to ask might be the horses 
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Amen to that
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The holier than thou approach is so appealing.
What happens if you ask all the horses at a hunter/jumper or dressage show if they like what they do?
I’ve seen plenty of poorly treated and ridden horses at horse shows; I’ve seen plenty of rough riders who do not have any intention of improving their skills. I’ve seen trainers of the most questionable methodology. And then there are the horses who’d be too drugged to answer coherently.
But carry on with your amens. Reality should never get in the way of preaching to the choir.
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