This has been discussed in other sports as well, since a good many have both team and individual competition. That is, have a team competition with one set of athletes, and an individual competition with a different set of athletes.
Logistically speaking, this format would greatly increase the number of athletes present at the games - and their entourage - needing travel, housing, food, practice facilities, etc. For the same set of competitions as now. That cost alone is likely to stop the idea from ever being implemented.
And re competition, the best athletes from each country will have to choose if they compete as individuals or with the team (or the country organization chooses). Whatever they choose, that will leave the second-best (theoretically) in the other slot. So the competition itself does not work out to be the best against the best, as it is formulated to be now. And not for nothing, the commentators for each sport will be all over that as a talking point.
Of course there are some sports at the Olympics that do put different athletes in the team and individual events. I think gymnastics does that to at least some extent.
But especially for equestrian, I think the cost of sending so many more horses and riders will make it unworkable.
Yeah just thinking of stabling and transport alone – wow that would be a LOT of additional horses to accommodate. And all the support they have to have.
I apologize if this has already been answered or is a really dumb question, but why don’t they just award the individual medals as they stand at the end of competition?
I mean, I guess you could argue someone was riding conservatively for the good of the team, but a second stadium round can’t make up for that. It can only hurt you.
If we are splitting hairs, Ollie’s loss of an individual medal bothers me more than Michi’s. A life saving device releasing on XC, albeit in a suspect manner, isn’t as bothersome to me as someone sitting in 2nd place at the end of the event, but losing their medal in a bonus round not found in regular competition. Both are plain bad luck, but it’s easier for me to stomach bad luck if I feel like there is some greater good, like improved safety.
It’s an an Olympic rule that you can’t win team and individual medals for the same competition so they have to add the second sj round to make it a different competition.
Blockquote It’s a frustrating impasse to have to repeatedly bend to the IOC’s rules.
Eventing, and equestrian in general, sold its soul to stay in the Olympic Games years ago. My prediction is that the short XC course we saw in Japan will become a fixture in future games.
Yeah there is a question if the Olympics really wants eventing at all, or just a “showcase” version to entertain the masses. I suspect that “showcase” is the eventual destination of Olympic eventing.
Unless they regularly park it in countries with enough serious eventers to whip out an authentic XC course, as they did in London and Rio.
I still kind of think if they want to keep “eventing” in the Olympics, they should just call it something different since it’s not really the same as actual eventing.
Equiratings has put up a Tokyo debrief with Sam, and it is well worth the listen.
He discussed in depth the MIM clip issue. Upthread I said in response to Gardenhorse:
Sam made some really interesting points about this. Firstly, he mentioned that he had seen Michael Jung’s footage (which still has not been released publicly, but MJ showed him personally), and he confirmed that it was a similar situation to his own with Flamenco - the horse trailed a hind leg slightly, the trajectory of the jump did not change at any time (and he did concur with what MJ had said about the rail actually falling about 3 strides later). But he had a few thoughts on the matter:
The clips were changed after every single rider, deployed or not, through great effort by the ground jury to ensure as level a playing field as possible, so it was not a previously weakened clip.
He was adamant that we should not “throw the [frangible] baby out with the bathwater”. According to Sam, the main issue was that the riders were unfamiliar with the yellow clips. He said he does not/will not change how he rides at a red MIM fence, but having seen what he did in Tokyo and understanding that force (which is how the pin is triggered) equals mass times acceleration, he will travel through combinations with yellow clips at a lower rate of speed to bring down the force (and he expects other riders like MJ will make a similar adjustment). Interestingly, he does not see this as a bad thing - he compared it to the adjustability question asked by a coffin, which requires riders to be able to move their horses through the gears and demonstrate adjustability. It seemed the only thing he wishes were different were that the riders knew the clips were this sensitive beforehand - bad timing to learn this lesson when the stakes are so high.
He didn’t mention the angle of approach thing I was talking about above, so maybe I was off base there. I thought it was fascinating that he thinks this will change the ride required, but did not see this as a negative. I was glad to hear that even top level cross country riders still think we are on the right track, and that frangibles of some kind remain necessary to protect the ongoing safety of horse and rider.
He also alluded to the same issue I mentioned here:
Unfortunately the discussion went a different way, and he didn’t fully flesh out his thoughts, but I agree that not enough attention is be paid to the fact that it absolutely would have been (mathematically, logistically) possible for there to be four riders wearing bronze medals on the team podium in Tokyo, two of which would not have completed all three phases. I don’t know what the answer is, but in my mind that shouldn’t be.
Very much recommend the podcast - educational and entertaining, what more could you want?
Listening now. Sam is one of my favorite people to learn from. Would Sam feel the same if he was in medal position and had that penalty I wonder though lol
I think riders will be super super careul with MIM fences now, which is fine if the fence is suited to jump that way, but if its a fence you need to ride very forward to?
That’s why I thought Sam’s thoughts were especially interesting - he said he has never and does not ever plan to ride a red MIM clip differently than any other solid fence. He does plan to adjust his ride for yellow clipped fences in the future, but those are only applied to fences to be ridden on angles (angled gates, open corners, etc). I personally cannot think of any fence in that category that would need to be ridden very forward, but it’s early days on that one, of course.
The sport is constantly evolving. I was looking at a table at a 3* and asked a pro rider how she would approach it. “Oh that’s just a galloping fence” she said airily. Times past, pre clear ground line and sloping profile as mandated by FEI, a table was a fearsome fence to be ridden with caution.
Personally, I’ve always thought that activation of a safety feature should not be penalised since any other jump can be totally destroyed and, as long as the pair stay on their feet and pass between the flags, no penalties will be given. Now I’m coming round to the idea that riders will take excessive risks if they believe they can because of the safety features on the fence.
Yes, I think like a combination that requires a forward line or something. It is certainly something that course builders and designers need to consider in the future.
My brain distractedly connected MIM clip/Olympics with Michael Jung with Sam-the-horse …
… and for a microsecond I thought that Sam The Horse Jung had taken up an after-career of commenting on cross-country courses, as great athletes with impressive records often do for a second career … and who better to comment on a MIM clip at the Olympics than Sam The Horse Jung.
