The FEI Tribunal has issued its Final Decision in a human anti-doping case involving an adverse analytical finding for the prohibited substance Benzoylecgonine, a metabolite of cocaine, and Amfetamine. Both are non-specified substances that are prohibited in competition under the 2018 WADA Prohibited List.

Samples taken from the athlete Jan-Philipp Weichert (FEI ID 10072662/GER) on 10 June 2018 during the German National Championships, CSI2* in Balve (GER) returned positive for the two substances.

The FEI Tribunal approved the agreement between the FEI and the athlete on 13 July 2020.

The Athlete admitted the violation and the FEI Tribunal accepted that the violation was not intentional, since the substances were consumed in a context unrelated to sport, the standard four-year ineligibility period was reduced to two years. The athlete has already served the ineligibility period, which started on 2 July 2018 and ended on 1 July 2020.

All results recorded by the athlete from the date of the event were disqualified. The athlete was also ordered to pay a fine of CHF 1,500. Each party will pay their own legal costs.

The Final Tribunal Decision can be found here.

The parties can appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) within 21 days of receipt of the Decision.

Notes to Editors:

FEI Anti-Doping Rules for Human Athletes (ADRHA)

The FEI is part of the collaborative worldwide movement for doping-free sport led by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA). The aim of this movement is to protect fair competition as well as athlete health and welfare.

WADA’s Prohibited List identifies the substances and methods prohibited in- and out-of-competition, and in particular sports. The substances and methods on the List are classified by different categories (e.g., steroids, stimulants, gene doping).

The List comes into effect on 1 January of each year.

As a WADA Code Signatory, the FEI runs a testing programme for human athletes based on WADA’s List of Prohibited List of Substances and Methods and on the Code-compliant FEI Anti-Doping Rules for Human Athletes (ADRHA).

For further information, please consult the Clean Sport section of the FEI website here and the FAQ on the WADA website.

Mexican showjumper, Federico Fernandez, had just arrived in Madrid (ESP) by train when I spoke with him last week. He was en route to a business meeting and had intended travelling by air from Valencia (ESP), but the flight was cancelled at the last moment. 

Considering his story, I asked him if he has any fear of flying. Federico was one of just three people who survived an horrific air-crash back in 1987, but he has more than come to terms with the tragedy that claimed the life of his friend and team-mate Ruben Rodrigues and at least 50 others. The horse transporter carrying the Mexican contingent to a Young Riders Championship in Chicago (USA) fell out of the sky and ploughed into rush-hour traffic on the eight-lane Mexico-Toluca highway before slamming into a restaurant on a drizzly Friday afternoon 33 years ago. 

“To be honest I never think that something bad can happen to me - the place I sleep the best is on a plane!”, he says.

My first close encounter with this remarkable man, who has competed at three Olympic Games and six FEI World Equestrian Games™ (WEG), was in the aftermath of his team’s historic victory in the Longines FEI Jumping Nations Cup™ in Dublin in 2018, when Mexico claimed the coveted Aga Khan Trophy for the very first time. I moderated the post-competition press conference that evening, and in all my years in the sport I have never experienced so much immense joy and such wild celebrations. 

And Federico’s words that day embedded themselves into my memory. “After what happened to me I feel an obligation to be happy, and today was one of the happiest days of my life!”, he said.

Family passion

His uncle, Fernando Senderos, won individual gold and team silver at the Pan-American Games in Mexico City in 1975, and Federico inherited the family passion for horses. He was nine years old when he first climbed into the saddle, and when I ask him about his childhood heroes he tells me that the legacy of individual champion Humberto Mariles and his gold-medal-winning military team-mates was still very much in place when he was growing up. They swept all before them at the London Olympic Games in 1948.

“Captain Mariles rode a small, one-eyed horse (Arete) and was a fantastic rider. It was the Mexican golden era of showjumping when they were the team to beat for about 10 or 12 years, we’ve never had anything like that since”, he says. 

However US riders were the big stars on his own horizon when he was child. “We heard a lot about Nelson Pessoa and the d’Inzeo brothers but they were faraway legends because we didn’t get to see them. The guys we had around the corner were Americans like Rodney Jenkins and Michael Matz, great horsemen. And at home Gerardo Tazzer was my trainer and I was lucky enough to jump on many Nations Cup teams and at the Olympics in Athens (GRE, 2004) with him”, Federico explains. 

Business

Riding hasn’t been the only thing in his life however. Federico is one of those exceptional people who successfully manage to combine careers in both business and sport. He was something of an entrepreneur in his teens. “I sold hot-dogs outside my school, and then got more and more hot-dog cars as I went along!”, he says.

“Mexico is an incredible country that gives you amazing opportunities”, he points out. He began his career by creating companies that functioned as service-providers to big corporations. “Then a few big international companies came to start businesses and I partnered with them and ended up selling the business to them. After doing that a few times I have a business with two arms - one providing small/medium businesses with a high level of services in terms of payroll, administration and human resources, and the other providing small businesses with loans to help them grow. 

“In Mexico we really need to support young entrepreneurs. I’m proud of what we do, and it makes me really happy when we can help people source a loan and build a secure business”, he explains.

However while researching his competition profile I was staggered by the number of horse shows Federico attends. How does he manage to combine his business commitments with his sporting endeavours?

“I’m an incredibly lucky man, I have an amazing team and with today’s technology you can stay on top of your business even if you are on the other side of the world. It works well because sometimes when you are doing horses it’s good to take the focus off them for a while, because we can forget that they are animals and need some time alone. When you dedicate too much time to thinking about new things to do with them then sometimes it goes backwards! And the same thing happens in business. Sometimes you need to step away so you can see the wood for the trees…..”, he points out. 

Federico talks a lot about having balance in his life. “I try to understand the things I need to get that balance, like family, horses, entrepreneurship. I love to eat and I love to travel, so I put everything in the mix and every few years check that the mix I have is the right one. Because that’s very dynamic, it changes, so you have to adjust from time to time”, he says wisely.

He is married to Spanish-born Paola Amilibia, ‘the love of my life’, who also competes for Team Mexico, and Federico has three children from a previous marriage - Juan Pablo, Eduardo and Federica. 

Mature young man

He was already a mature young man in his early 20s because he had been through a lot. He had only just returned to competition after back-packing across Europe for a year when the air-crash happened. The cargo plane was an all-but-obsolete 4-engine propellor-driven Boeing 377 that dated back to the 1940s, and it came down just seven minutes after take-off.

I ask him if it’s difficult to talk about the crash, and he insists it is not. “Incredible things came from it. At this point in my life it’s easy to say that, but if I could re-live my life I wouldn’t change it”, he insists.

His clothes were ablaze, and he suffered severe burns but survived along with two other people and just one of the horses on the flight. Hard as it is to believe, that surviving horse, Pepito, went on to compete with Mexico’s Everardo Hegewisch at the Seoul Olympic Games the following year.  

Federico doesn’t dwell on the horror of it all. “Everything happens for a reason”, he says. 

"It’s your will, your spirit, your determination, your power that turns a thing like this into something good instead of something that goes against you"

“Since that day I learned to not be worried about things that don’t matter, to really focus on the things you can change and not on the things you can’t, and to live every day like it’s your last. To create a life so that you go to bed hoping the night goes fast, because you really want the next day to start again. If you can make this your every day then you are a very happy person!”  

He had surgery on his face at least 50 times. In the end he decided he’d just had enough of it. “The difficult part was I was just 19 years old, and when you get your face destroyed at that point in your life you have to really spend some time re-organising your feelings. It made me completely change my scale of importance, and I started looking more into the inside of things and less into the superficiality of life. And I found a lot of comfort and happiness in that.

“It made me grow up very fast and made me a person I like better today. All kids are superficial, I loved riding and everything to do with it which in many ways is very superficial. Success - or not - with the girls was important to me, and my work was all about making money. But those things changed in a positive way”, he insists.

Back in the ring

He spent six months in a hospital burns unit in Galveston, Texas, and the doctors told him it would be a long, slow path to recovery. But he was back in the ring and winning his next Grand Prix in Mexico City a year later, and in 1989 he qualified for the FEI World Cup™ Jumping Final in Tampa, Florida (USA). That would be his first, and his last Final…..

“In Mexico we don’t have an indoor circuit because of our fantastic weather, so I qualified at outdoor shows and when I went into the indoor I realised for the first time that my eyes had some issues after they were burned. When I was looking at the light that came from lamps I couldn’t see where I was, and I’ve never competed in an indoor again. Daylight is ok and in stadium lighting (under floodlights) I see even better, but the problem is lamps. My pupils are in only one position and can’t adjust, so when I go from bright to not-so-bright then it’s like looking into a cloud”, he explains. 

I ask him what sporting successes he treasures most, and he tells me that every Grand Prix win is special. “I’m good at enjoying the moment when it happens. I try to enjoy it deeply because this sport is cruel in many ways, the next competition you have a fence down and the magic is gone very quickly! The good thing about Grand Prix classes is that they are on Sundays, so you’ve a whole week to feel proud knowing that maybe the next one won’t be so lucky for you!”

That Nations Cup win in Dublin two years ago and the team silver medal he earned alongside Gerardo Tazzer at the Pan-American Games in the Dominican Republic in 2004 are stand-out moments, along with finishing 13th at the WEG in Jerez (ESP) in 2002.

Favourites

When I ask about his favourite horses he doesn’t hesitate. "My darling Bohemio! He’s Irish-bred and the most amazing horse. He has been Mexican National champion and took me to the Pan-Ams, the Olympic Games and the WEG. In the Masters at Spruce Meadows (CAN) the Cana Cup is the big class on Friday, and there were only two clears and we went into a jump-off against Jos Lansink and Cumano who had just won the World Championships (in 2006) and we beat them, it was amazing! In 2008 he was the top horse in the summer series (at Spruce Meadows) but he was injured after winning a class. That injury ended his career, but he finished the best possible way with a win! He’s 28 years old now and enjoying his retirement out in my fields.”

And then there is Gitano, “a great Grand Prix winner in Mexico, not scopey enough to do the same in big Grand Prix competitions in Europe but a fantastic character and a winner. In Mexico he gave me so many successes that I really love him, for that and for his character. These two horses were not just very special in the ring, they also had so much personality, they gave you their best every time you rode them. When you feel that your horse is completely with you and willing to do anything for you that creates a kind of magic!” 

I ask Federico if there are any famous horses he would have liked to sit on, but he replies that he prefers watching them with their own riders “because I truly believe some couples are made in heaven!”  He lists Hugo Simon and ET, Jos Lansink and Cumano and John Whitaker ‘in my opinion the best rider in the history of the world’ with Milton as some of his favourites, along with Eddie Macken and Boomerang and Rodrigo Pessoa with Baloubet. 

And then he moves on to Rio 2016 individual Olympic champion Nick Skelton from Great Britain with Big Star. “Since London (Olympics 2012) Nick didn’t ride another horse, he was just determined to win that gold medal and he spent those four years helping the stallion to recover from a bad injury and getting him back into the sport only to show up up at the Games and win that gold - just brilliant!”, he says. 

Tokyo

I ask him if Landpeter de Feroleto, the horse that carried him to that historic Nations Cup victory in Dublin two years ago, had been aimed at the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games before the world was brought to a halt by the pandemic. The horse is 18 years old now however, so hardly surprising that the answer was in the negative….

”I had planned with our Chef d’Equpe to give Peter his retirement tour this year, he’s been an amazing horse for many riders, he gave me the win at Dublin and also in the Nations Cup in Mexico and was very generous with me. Unfortunately with the Covid situation there have been no Nations Cups so it would be very unfair to stretch his retirement one more year. He isn’t on my list of favourite horses because he came to me when he was 15. If I’d had him since he was eight who knows what we might have done together. But he is a special horse with a huge heart who would do anything for you”, he points out.

Feredico is placing his hopes for Tokyo elsewhere, and the hiatus caused by the virus may just work to his advantage. “Coming into this year I was not in the best situation because I had a horse that was coming along but not ready. However one year more really benefits me in terms of my possibility, I have a horse that needed the extra time and now he will have it. His name is Grand Slam and I got him three years ago but he had a bad injury and was out for one year. Now he is strong and healthy and jumping great, so I think he’ll be in super shape”. 

Thoughts

Finally I ask for his thoughts about the pandemic and its effect. “I don’t want to sound like a preacher”, he says with a laugh, “but we’ve had the opportunity to slow down in a world that normally goes so fast. At some stage we have all felt annoyed and anxious, and in many cases - including my own - it was financially disruptive and took away our peace of mind. But we’ve been given a chance to take a really good dive inside ourselves, to understand who we are and to regain the understanding of how incredibly beautiful life is, and liberty, and the right to walk in the streets and breathe the air and smell the flowers, all of that. 

“And I honestly think that you always have to believe that the best is yet to come. We’ve been given a fresh start, so now is the time to re-prioritise things in your life, to put some dreams on the table, and to try to make them real. It’s in everyone’s hands to make that happen….”

 

The FEI and ClipMyHorse.TV (CMH.TV) have entered into an agreement that is set to change the future landscape of the global governing body’s live streaming services to millions of equestrian fans worldwide. CMH.TV is one of the world’s leading providers of live streams for equestrian sports.

“We are very excited with this new venture which is the result of open and productive conversations with the founder of ClipMyHorse.TV Mr Klaus Plönzke,” FEI President Ingmar De Vos said.

“This is the first time the FEI will have an equity stake in a company which will allow us to actively contribute to shaping the narrative around the coverage of equestrian events.

“By bringing together our collective strengths, we can work towards the development of one combined live streaming service that provides high quality event coverage and a broader range of content to fans.”  

FEI.TV has traditionally live-streamed all major FEI Series and Championships, with an extensive range of replays, special features and historic events coverage available live and on-demand. Subscribers can now view coverage of international, national and local equestrian events, with commentary provided in English as well as local languages. They will also have access to the largest archive of equestrian video content and an extensive database of information on athletes and horses.

“ClipMyHorse.TV’s comprehensive platform and their extensive experience with production and streaming services within this sector will allow for an improved viewing experience for FEI.TV customers, while the look and feel of FEI.TV will, at least for the moment, stay the same,” FEI Commercial Director Ralph Straus said.

“The depth of the combined offering is unique and will provide equestrian fans access to a wide range of events all under one roof, from top international events to local competitions, together with online equestrian magazines, documentaries and other relevant programming.”

Currently the FEI.TV online television platform is providing coverage of past events and special equestrian features free of charge to everyone while live sport is on hold.

“The market for OTT and streaming services has grown substantially and we have seen an exponential rise in online viewing,” CEO of CMH.TV Markus Detering explained.

“We created the CMH.TV platform in 2007 with the express aim of making horse sport events across the world accessible to fans and followers everywhere and at any time.

“By pooling our resources with the FEI, we will be able to offer equestrian fans a more in-depth and enriching experience that will make the sport even more attractive and to a wider global audience.”

It sounded like he was being dive-bombed by sea-planes when I spoke with Pedro Cebulka last week. “That’s another one coming over now”, he’d say with a laugh as our conversation about his life and times had to be put on hold again and again.

He and his wife, Janet, were staying at a cabin belonging to some friends on a camper-van trip around Vancouver Island in British Columbia just a few days before heading back to their Canadian home on the lake at Invermere. The man known in the equestrian world as “Pedro the Ringmaster” has an insatiable lust for travel, and simply loves being on the road.

To those who watch him turning chaos into order at so many of the major events on the international equestrian circuit it seems near-impossible that he has time to do anything else. But this multi-faceted character has significant business interests, a second home in Mexico where he and Janet live a different lifestyle, a great passion for music and for animal welfare, and a powerful sense of social responsibility. It’s quite difficult to keep up with him to be honest, but I give it my best shot….

“I have a Spanish first name, Polish last name, German and Canadian passports, a Dutch wife who is now also Canadian and two Canadian kids who also have German passports, so I’m really mixed up!”, he begins. However Pedro isn’t his birth name. He was born Peter Cebulka but changed it to the Spanish version after falling in love with the Latin outlook on life on his first visit to Brazil in 1976 at the age of 24.

Banking

By then he had already been very successful in the world of banking, and was on course for a university degree in Economics. But as he said when we spoke, “it wasn’t what I was meant for…..”.

He was only 15 years old when he took up a three-year apprenticeship at Deutsche Bank before moving to Hamburg where his career really took off over the next five years, “I was good at stocks and bonds and I worked my way up to the Stock Exchange”, he says. But, in his own inimitable way, Pedro also had a side-line. 

“A friend of mine had a lovely pub in Lueneburg, so I worked in the bank five days a week and on Saturday morning I was a bar-tender in the pub and on Sunday morning I was a waiter. I had Sunday afternoon off and then on Sunday evening I was a bar-tender again and I learned a lot from those days. How to communicate with all kinds of people from all walks of life, how to make them happy and comfortable and how to deal with them if there was a problem”, he explains.

A trip to Brazil dramatically changed the course of his career in 1976. “After three weeks there I decided to hell with Economics, the world is too beautiful, so I stayed in South America for five months and I never looked back!” he says. “I saw Brazil, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, the Galapagos Islands, Machu Picchu, I learned Spanish and I met many wonderful people”. 

Chance meeting

With his new-found taste for freedom he set off the following year on a world tour with a group of friends, and on his way through Banff in Canada a chance meeting would turn his life in another new direction. “It was August 1977, and I met a Swiss guy who said he was working at a new equestrian centre called Spruce Meadows and that if I wanted a job I could work there as a carpenter/helper for a few days so I did that. And when we were laid off, the riding master Albert Kley who came from the same area as me in Germany, said I could help out at the show coming up in September so I stayed and worked on maintenance and other things around the showgrounds”, Pedro explains.

By then Ron Southern, founder of Spruce Meadows and Chairman of the Calgary-based ATCO Group, had encountered the enthusiastic young German and they formed a strong bond. “He treated me like a stepson”, Pedro says.

It was only the second year of the now world-renowned Masters Tournament, and Pedro’s multiple skills were called into play as an interpreter for visiting teams and their crews, as an announcer in German and Spanish and as a course-builder. Over the next five years he would divide his time between helping out at Spruce Meadows and working as a Tour Guide. 

“I was a Guide for several years in South America, Central America, South East Asia and in many exotic countries where I could help German tourists feel at home. It was a wonderful time”, he recalls.

Course-building

During this period he also expanded his course-building expertise under the guiding hand of the legendary British course-designer Pam Carruthers who was responsible for the development of Spruce Meadows in the early years. Both Pam and Ron Southern encouraged Pedro to go to Europe for experience, and in 1979 he assisted at the FEI European Championships in Rotterdam (NED) before being invited to help at Hickstead (GBR). He remembers one particularly frenetic afternoon at the big British event. 

“The course crew always took a break around 2.30pm, and one afternoon myself and a lady called Penny who was about 85 years old were the only ones in the arena when a rider came in. He had a refusal and destroyed an early fence so I had to run over and put it together again, and then he had another refusal on the other side of the arena and I was running around like crazy to find poles and trying to keep things going. And then he came down to the last fence and ploughed through that and it was a huge job to get it back in place before the next horse came in - all while the rest of the crew were having their afternoon tea!”, he says with a laugh. 

Pam told him there was no point in going on to Dublin Horse Show looking for work. “But after three days of pestering, Steve Hickey (Irish course designer) took me under his wing and I had the best of times working with him!”, Pedro says. It was all part of Ron Southern’s advice to stay open to new ideas. “At many of the old shows they would say ‘it’s tradition, we do it this way and we can’t change”, but in Spruce Meadows we borrowed the good ideas and always kept an open mind.”

From 1983 to 1985 Pedro enjoyed some special years working full-time at Spruce Meadows and managing the Equitana (now Equi-Fair) trade show. He and Janet were married in Hawaii in 1984, and their daughters Stephanie and Jessica arrived over the next two years. But in 1986 Pedro decided to leave Spruce Meadows for health reasons. He was burned out. “I loved what I was doing but physically it was too much, I’d start at 7am and work until midnight and I had high blood pressure”, he explains. 

Selling dreams

He took up a job as a salesman with Fairmont Hot Springs Resort in the Rocky Mountains, “I loved it because we were selling dreams to customers”, he says.  In 1988 he also got involved in a time-share business in Mexico, and then Don and Carol Seable invited Pedro to become a partner in the Fairmont business. A whole new chapter of his life was opening up, and he would go on to become a land developer in his own right and would establish his own condominium management company. But he didn’t sever his connections with Spruce Meadows. 

Asked to help at the in-gate as a starter for the horse shows, he jumped at the chance. “They wanted someone who knew the riders, who was strong enough so they would be listened to, but not a little little general yelling because now he thinks he’s a policeman!” Pedro learned a lot from these early days in command of the arena gateway. “It taught me to be kind but firm”, says the man who continues to show those two important qualities to this day.

I ask him if being so tall - at least 6ft 3ins - helps when he is trying to instil discipline into proceedings, and he laughs. “Yes, size matters, but what I find now after 43 years doing this job is that 43 years matter! Someone once said anyone can be a superstar for one year, but the best athletes are on top over a long period of time. Like the Whitakers, like Nick (Skelton), like David Broome, like Ludger (Beerbaum). I’ve been doing this job a long time”.

Here to help

He says he never found the job of getting riders into the ring promptly, or making sense out of chaotic prizegiving ceremonies or ceremonial occasions, a problem because his mantra to the riders is ‘I’m here to help you’. He had the ultimate pressure from the outset at Spruce Meadows with live TV demanding spot-on timing. “That’s where my German background kicks in - I give the riders the countdown and it has to be done. If someone is late going in I don’t say anything, but when they come out….”

He says that Mexican businessman and political advisor Alfonso Romo from the world-famous La Silla Stud in Monterrey tells a story about his first encounter with Pedro the Ringmaster.

“I was competing at Spruce Meadows and I was a sponsor of a new building so I was a VIP guest of honour and this guy (Pedro) calls me in Spanish. I’m a little bit late, just a minute or so, and when I come out he says to me very nicely, Poncho when you have the horse put away can you come and see me? He says I’ve 50 riders here with 50 different systems of working their horses and we have live TV. When you have your system you do what you want, but when you are in my ring you do my system or you’re going home!”  

Apparently Senor Romo didn’t do it again. 

"If everyone is late then the warm-up of 50 riders doesn’t work. I don’t have time to say please - I learned from Pamela Carruthers to do it in military style, we are here to work and that’s it. I may come across as a bit harsh, but in essence the word is “now!”"

Pedro says he’s doesn’t take it personally on the rare occasions that his instructions are ignored. “And I’ve learned over the last six Olympics that they are like nothing else. I’d rather have a rule broken then get a rider upset before they go in - the pressure they are under is incredible. But of course I have the TV director shouting at me so it’s a very fine line…”, he points out.

Stand-out moments

I ask about moments that stand out for him down the years. “There are so many I get goosebumps just thinking about them! There was Ian Millar (CAN) at the Pan-American Games in 1999 when he came to the gate - with a broken foot - and I’m telling him there are four more to go and you are in fifth, then three to go and now you’re in third, the next rider had eight faults and he was in silver and then the last rider went and he had the gold. It felt so good, he’s been a friend to me from the beginning….

“And the high five I got from Eric Lamaze (CAN) - I’ve been with him through good and bad - when he won the gold in Hong Kong (Beijing 2008 Olympic Games)! That evening I carried him to the media party on my shoulders and we were dancing and celebrating until four in the morning!

“Everyone is your friend when you win but for me a real friend is the one who is there when you are down, so Marcus Ehning (GER) at the European Championships in Mannheim (GER) in 2007 where Kuchengirl stopped again and again. He goes on the podium to get the team gold medal without jumping a single round and he’s crying with the medal around his neck…..I’ll never forget that. But I’ll never forget him winning the Global Final with her in Rio (Brazil) a few years later either. It was a huge win and I was there for that too - it was a great moment!” 

I ask him about the extraordinary costumes he wears in his Ringmaster role - what inspires them? “It all started when I bought a pink hat in Hawaii and people liked it. I went on to a military hat, a Mountie uniform, I put crazy things together wherever I went. In 2010 Animo sponsored my tails and now I have a few of them designed by Franco Dragone. I rent some of them too - they make people smile!”, he says. 

Music

The first time I met Pedro, back in the 1980s, he was playing a tin whistle at a party and he hasn’t stopped since. He’s a great musician and can be found entertaining all and sundry at every after-party. He inherited his musical bent from his mother and his craving for travel from the fact that his father never got to live out his travel ambitions.

Imprisoned during WWll, his dad just wanted to live a quiet life, never owning a car or a house and happy to go to work by bus, walking or cycling. He intended travelling after his retirement aged 60, but his wife died of cancer in 1976 while Pedro was in Ecuador. It’s a painful memory. 

“They had applied for passports to go back to Poland to see where she was born but my father said they should wait, and two weeks after my mother’s funeral the passports arrived and my father cried. He lived two more years. His first dream was to go to Hamburg - just 53 kilometres from where we lived in Uelzen - when the time was right, but he never made it. So I learned when you want to travel, you travel”, Pedro says with great sadness.

Positive outlook

But he is a man with a hugely positive outlook on life and who lives it to the full. He tells me he’s keeping fit, “I need that in my job”, he’s eating healthily, he cycles and he walks the family’s two rescue dogs every day. They were both strays, Santo attaching himself to Janet on Santa Barbara beach in California in 2011 and Mexi latching onto them when they overnighted in a parking lot at the Mexican border 18 months ago. 

“We are very much involved with dog rescue down in the Baja (California peninsula) and I do Master of Ceremonies at fundraisers to help out”, Pedro explains.

I finally ask him about his thoughts on coping with the current situation created by the pandemic that continues to restrict, and affect, life and sport. He says he’s inspired by para-athletes because they have so much to put up with, but never complain. 

“I can’t speak for people who have lost their jobs and everything, it’s too hard. But there are also people who could do better but let themselves get dragged down - you have to try to be positive and make the best out of it. 

“We send money down to friends in Mexico on the beach to help because it’s really tough for them. JustWorld (Pedro is an Ambassador) is an official FEI partner and works with thousands of kids who need food, so if you can help with this or any other charities then do. The world needs everyone to do their best right now”.

Not too many people have been to 17 Olympic Games in their lifetime, but retired British journalist Alan Smith most certainly has. In a career that spanned 48 years he reported on no less than nine Summer and eight Winter Games along with all the major equestrian Championships between 1960 and 2008. “And I enjoyed every moment of it!”, he said when we spoke recently.

His decision to call it a day after the Beijing Games marked the end of an era. The classic newspaperman who was always dapper in his shirt and tie, and whose battered brown-leather briefcase heralded the presence of journalistic royalty in media centres around the world, is sorely missed. He played a significant role in the story of modern equestrian sport, not just as a writer but also as a Committee member in the early years of the FEI Jumping World Cup™ series, and holds the respect and admiration of athletes, luminaries and colleagues alike.

He’s looking forward to watching racing from Ascot on the afternoon I call, and that makes me smile. No matter what event he attended he always liked to “have a flutter on the ponies” on any given afternoon. He inherited that passion from his father, whose ill-health during Alan’s teenage years led to his son’s decision to set aside the offer of a place at Reading University and instead take on a job with Brenards Air Services News Agency at London Airport - now Heathrow and one of the largest travel hubs in the world but, according to Alan “just a collection of prefabricated shacks back then!” 

He was only 18 years old at the time, “but quite frankly we needed the money, my father was too ill to work, and I have to say it was the best training I could possibly have had. You had to be fast and accurate, and the stories were immediately circulated to all the newspapers” he explains. A bout of the debilitating lung disease, Tuberculosis, brought this job to an end however.

Recovery

Following his recovery he worked in the Pedigree Department of the British Bloodstock Agency and then moved on to the Racing staff of the Sheffield Telegraph newspaper. But he wanted to return to his home-town of London, “so I wrote to all sorts of different papers, including The Sporting Life and The Telegraph (The Daily Telegraph)”, he explains.

His first encounter with the latter was a boozy one, not an entirely uncommon feature of the newspaper world in those days. “The Sports Editor, Frank Coles, brought me straight into the King and Keys pub next door where we drank for a couple of hours and talked about the best way to get from Sheffield to London because the motorways hadn’t been built at that stage, and then I put him in a taxi to go home and I went back to Sheffield”, Alan recalls. 

But when he got back, there was a letter from The Sporting Life offering him a job. So he phoned Frank the following day, told him about the job offer but said he’d rather work for The Telegraph, and was asked ‘when would you like to start?’ 

“If that letter hadn’t arrived I wouldn’t have phoned him and I’m sure he would have forgotten all about me, so that was lucky!”, Alan says with a laugh.

A bit of showjumping

Not long after he joined the Racing Department at The Telegraph, Deputy Sports Editor Kingsley Wright asked the new recruit if he’d like to ‘do a bit’ of showjumping coverage, and that request would begin the journey that would continue for almost a half-century.

In 1961 Alan covered the FEI Junior European Championships at Hickstead, and he was keen to do it again the following year so he cautiously approached his editor to get his approval. “He liked horses, he liked me, and he liked the things I’d done already. So his first question was “did we cover them last year old boy?”, and I said “of course Kingsley yes”, and he said “well you better cover them this year then”. However Alan didn’t explain that the 1962 Championships would be held in Berlin (GER). “So off I went and called into the Nations Cup show in Rotterdam on the way back, and from then on my international career was on its way!”, he says with another laugh.

By the end of that year he was just providing Kingsley with a list of all the events he intended to go to, “and until I stopped they never questioned where I was going, they felt I knew better than they did what ought to be covered and, needless to say, the places I travelled to were all the nicest ones!” 

He arrived on the equestrian scene at a really good time. “I was very lucky because showjumping was regularly televised and incredibly popular with the public, so in the 60s, 70s and most of the 80s every newspaper had someone writing about it”, Alan explains. 

Skiing

In those days the horse show season ran from March to October, so to keep him busy over the winter months Alan was additionally allocated skiing coverage in 1965. It wasn’t a hardship.

“My first outing was to St Moritz (SUI), ostensibly to cover the British Army Ski Championships but it just so happened the same week the World Bob Championships were taking place. Britain’s Tony Nash and Robin Dickson, who won gold in Innsbruck (AUT) in ’84, were defending their title and it was brilliant because they won again. For 34 years I covered winter sports, and the first Olympics I went to were winter ones in Grenoble (FRA) in 1968. And again we were very lucky, we had the most brilliant women’s team that year. Gina Hawthorn missed a bronze medal by 300ths of a second and was fourth. Britain still hasn’t ever won an Olympic alpine skiing medal!”, he points out. 

Alan recalls that one of the members of that women’s ski team was Di Tomkinson whose mother skied at the Munich Olympics and whose daughter, Emma Pitt, owned Supreme Rock - the superb Event horse that carried Great Britain’s Pippa Funnell to team silver at the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney (AUS). “Three generations of Olympic connection there”, he points out. 

Luck on his side

He feels luck was on side in his early career with the launch of the showgrounds at Hickstead, the appointment of HRH Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh as FEI President and the establishment of the International Alliance of Equestrian Journalists (IAEJ) by Max Ammann. Prince Philip invited a representative of the IAEJ to attend the FEI General Assembly in Brussels (BEL) and Alan filled that role, building a lasting relationship with the Duke whose presidency spanned 24 years. 

“He was a lovely man to deal with, straight and to the point. He wrote the rules for competitive Driving and he started the World Equestrian Games (WEG). The first edition of the WEG at Stockholm (SWE) was supposed to be a one-off, but it was so good they decided to do it again in The Hague (NED). However if The Hague had been the inaugural World Games there would never have been a second one!”, he says, reflecting on the event that ended in financial bankruptcy. 

Things moved on rapidly after the FEI Jumping World Cup™ series was created in 1978. “For the first 20 years that Volvo was sponsoring it I was on the World Cup Committee so I attended a lot of the shows. You couldn’t find a better sponsor’s representative than Ulf Bergqvist and he, Max (Ammann) and I became very close friends”, Alan explains.

The technological age hadn’t arrived, so reports were still filed to copy-takers from hotel telephones, and calls often took hours to be connected.

Arrival of the Tandy

The arrival of the Tandy, one of the earliest PCs, revolutionised things. Alan’s first encounter with one was at the Seoul Olympic Games in 1988 when all he had to do was type in his stories because The Telegraph sent a technician to transmit the copy. Alan remembers those Games well. “They were pretty dramatic because the Canadian sprinter, Ben Johnson, was disqualified for doping so we all had to cover that too and I felt like a proper newspaperman for once!”, he says. 

His first Olympic reporting gig in Munich in 1972 was even more memorable. “Britain claimed team gold in Eventing and Ann Moore and Psalm took showjumping individual silver”, he recalls. But the world was horrified by the terrorist attack that left 11 Israeli athletes dead, and four days before the end of the Games Alan received a distressing phone call from his wife, Maddie, who had given birth to their son, Alex, just four weeks earlier. “She told me he’d been taken ill and was in an incubator and not expected to survive. I couldn’t wait to get home, so I jumped on a plane the next morning and thankfully he did survive - and he thrived!”

Favourite horses

I ask him about his favourite horses from his era, and he first names Merely a Monarch. “He was a top-level Event horse ridden by Anneli Drummond-Hay, and because women weren’t allowed to ride at the Olympics in Eventing the horse was diverted to showjumping and within months was a top-class jumper. He was wonderful. Fulke Walwyn, a very successful racehorse trainer at the time, said he could have trained him to win the Grand National as well! 

“Cornishman was a great horse, he won (Eventing) team gold for Mary Gordon-Watson in Munich but she was injured before the previous Games in Mexico and Richard Meade rode him to team gold there. It’s a very rare horse that wins gold medals with two different riders at Olympic level. And he made nothing of the World Championship course in Punchestown in 1970 that caused havoc for so many others - he was probably as good a cross-country horse as I’ve ever seen.

“And Marion Coakes’ little Stroller who jumped his heart out in the individual at the Mexico Games to take silver. They were such a great partnership, very successful together all the way from Junior to Olympic level and a credit to the sport from beginning to end”, he says.

Favourite riders

And what about his favourite riders? “There were so many……(Great Britain’s) John and Michael Whitaker, David Broome, Harvey Smith…Harvey is such a character and he provided us with so many great stories! When he gave the judges the V-sign after winning the Hickstead Derby (in 1971), that was some day to remember - the publicity it attracted to the sport was phenomenal! 

“Bill Steinkraus (USA) was a really great rider and writer and he played the piano rather well too! And Bill Roycroft who broke his shoulder going cross-country at the Olympic Games in Rome but signed himself out of the hospital to ride the showjumping on the last day because otherwise Australia wouldn’t have won team gold! And Mark Todd (NZL), such a supreme horseman…..Alwin and Paul Schockemohle and Ludger Beerbaum (GER) were really nice guys and spoke better English than some of our British riders! Janou Lefebvre and Pierre Durand (FRA) - there were so many I can’t stop!”, he says.

I ask him to recall any bizarre happenings down the years. “There was a show in Tripoli, Libya in Col Ghadaffi’s day and a few British riders, Raymond Brooks-Ward and I and a couple of others were invited out there. The Grand Prix was won by a Libyan rider and suddenly the arena was filled with people shooting off their guns into the air - that was an unusual occasion I have to say!!

And then there was Lucinda Greene wandering around Fontainebleau (FRA) on dressage day in a sort of daze saying ‘I can’t find my horse, I don’t know where my horse is!’  when she was due to go into the arena just a few minutes later! The big stand-off between Tina Cassan (GBR) and the judges at the World Cup Final in Del Mar (USA) in 1992 because she said the clock started before her round began…that was epic, but Bill Steinkraus sorted it all out with his usual diplomatic flair!” 

Favourite memory

I ask for a favourite memory and of course I’m not surprised it’s a British one. “David Broome winning the World Championships at La Baule (FRA in 1970) - that was a fantastic competition. He was such a good rider. It was rare for any country to have two through to the Final four, and both David and Harvey qualified along with Graziano Mancinelli (ITA) and Alwin Schockemohle (GER). Mancinelli’s Fidux was a very difficult horse, but when David took his turn it was like he was riding on silk reins”.

And what about personal friendships made down the years? “Among journalists my great friend was Brian Giles of the Daily Mail who told me later that when we first met in La Baule he thought I was the most arrogant man he’d ever come across! Also Jenny MacArthur from The Times and Jenny Murphy from The Independent - I owe so much to Jenny Murphy because it was through her that I met Maddie”, he points out. In the course of his career Alan travelled the world with his lovely wife Maddie who sadly passed away in 2016. They were a beacon of togetherness on the circuit, and Maddie was always accompanied by the family dog when attending British fixtures.

Alan’s own equestrian exploits included “a bit of hunting” and the fun of competing in “The Scribbler’s Stakes”, a special jumping class for journalists at the world-famous Christmas Show at Olympia in London in 1973 and 1974 which were televised by the BBC. 

That was the heyday of equestrian sports coverage, when riders were household names, especially across Great Britain. Alan says it was the drive of people like Raymond Brooks-Ward and Bob Dean, creators of British Equestrian Promotions, that made the difference. 

"“They were so successful that in 1970 officials from the Football Association went to talk to them about how they could promote soccer, and look where that is today. Bob was prepared to do whatever was required to maximise publicity, even sending Ted Edgar out onto Kensington High Street riding a camel to promote Olympia!"

Legacy

Although Alan no longer frequents the equestrian circuit, his legacy is still very much in place. Throughout his career he set an example of professionalism, and the creation of the IAEJ has helped promote contact between journalists around the globe while also providing a conduit between the working equestrian press and the FEI.

He has always been a prolific writer, with not only years of newspaper coverage filed away but with his name on 14 book-covers including the latest - “Hickstead, A Golden Celebration” - published in 2010. And he’s not finished yet. He admitted to diving into his memoirs during his retirement, and they should make some reading when they see the light of day.

Looking back, Alan says he couldn’t have had a better career and that he enjoyed every minute of it. “The late, great Ian Wooldridge - for my money one of the best, and certainly the wittiest of sports writers - once told me he thought I had the best job in Fleet Street. And I wouldn’t disagree…….!”

 

The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) has handed down its decision on a horse abuse case. FEI Tribunal Decisions on a human anti-doping case and one equine anti-doping case were also published this week.

The abuse case involved the horse Sarab (FEI ID 105DP50/UAE), ridden by Abdul Rahman Saeed Saleh Al Ghailani (FEI ID 10114704/UAE) at the CEI3* President Cup in Al Wathba (UAE) on 9 February 2019. The case was opened by the FEI following a protest filed by Clean Endurance on 15 February 2019. In its Final Decision of 26 June 2019, the FEI Tribunal Decision ruled that the athlete had committed horse abuse and suspended him for 12 months from the date of the Decision. The FEI Tribunal stated that aggravating circumstances existed and that the athlete also had to take some responsibility for the actions of his Support Personnel. The athlete was fined CHF 4,000 and ordered to pay CHF 1,000 towards the costs of the judicial procedure. All results achieved by the athlete and the horse at the event were disqualified.

The athlete appealed the FEI Tribunal Decision to CAS and a hearing was held at the CAS headquarters in Lausanne on 20 January 2019. The CAS upheld the FEI Tribunal decision, but reduced the athlete’s suspension to eight months as the Tribunal’s conclusion of aggravating circumstances was not substantiated. The CAS ordered the athlete to pay the fine and legal costs imposed by the FEI Tribunal. Additionally, he was ordered to pay CHF 3,000 towards the FEI’s legal fees.

The CAS Decision can be found here.

Separately, the FEI Tribunal rendered its Decision in a human anti-doping case involving the athlete Emma Augier De Moussac (FEI ID 10017125/CZE). Samples taken from the athlete at the CSI3*-W Designated Olympic Qualifier for Group C in Budapest (HUN), 26-30 June 2019, tested positive for the Prohibited Substance Hydrochlorothiazide. The FEI Tribunal accepted the agreement reached between the FEI and the athlete in its decision of 16 June 2020, after the athlete was able to establish that the Prohibited Substance entered her system accidentally through a supplement and that she therefore bore No Significant Fault or Negligence for the rule violation. As a result, the standard two-year ineligibility period was reduced to one year, running from 28 June 2019 to 27 June 2020. All results achieved by the athlete at the event were disqualified, plus all results obtained by the athlete between  the date of sample collection (28 June 2019) and the voluntary provisional suspension imposed on 23 December 2019. The athlete was ordered to pay a fine of CHF 2,000. Each party will bear their own legal costs.

The Final Tribunal Decision can be found here.

The FEI Tribunal also rendered its Decision in an equine anti-doping case, which involved the horses Linkin Park (FEI ID 105RH03/MEX) and Come Back (FEI ID 104SH43/MEX), ridden by Nicolas Pizarro (FEI ID 10002381/MEX). Samples taken from both horses at the CSI2* in San Miguel de Allende (MEX) on 12-15 March 2020 tested positive for the Banned Substance Ractopamine. The FEI Tribunal accepted the agreement reached between the FEI and the athlete in a decision on 26 June 2020. The athlete was able to establish that the source of the Prohibited Substance was contamination of the feed at the feed production plant and that he therefore bore No Fault or Negligence for the rule violation. He will not serve any period of ineligibility, apart from the provisional suspension he had already served since 21 April 2020. The results of the athlete and horse at the event were disqualified. Each of the parties will pay their own legal costs.

The Final Tribunal Decision can be found here.

In the two FEI Tribunal Decisions, the parties can appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) within 21 days of receipt of the Decisions.

Notes to Editors:

FEI Equine Prohibited Substances

The FEI Prohibited Substances List is divided into two sections: Controlled Medication and *Banned Substances. Controlled Medication substances are those that are regularly used to treat horses, but which must have been cleared from the horse’s system by the time of competition. Banned (doping) Substances should never be found in the body of the horse and are prohibited at all times.

In the case of an adverse analytical finding (AAF) for a Banned Substance, the Person Responsible (PR) is automatically provisionally suspended from the date of notification (with the exception of certain cases involving a Prohibited Substance which is also a **Specified Substance). The horse is provisionally suspended for two months.

**Specified Substances

The FEI introduced the concept of Specified Substances in 2016. Specified Substances should not in any way be considered less important or less dangerous than other Prohibited Substances (i.e. whether Banned or Controlled). Rather, they are simply substances which are more likely to have been ingested by horses for a purpose other than the enhancement of sport performance, for example, through a contaminated food substance. Positive cases involving Specified Substances can be handled with a greater degree of flexibility within the structure of the FEI Regulations.

Information on all substances is available on the searchable FEI Equine Prohibited Substances Database.

FEI Anti-Doping Rules for Human Athletes (ADRHA)
The FEI is part of the collaborative worldwide movement for doping-free sport led by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA). The aim of this movement is to protect fair competition as well as athlete health and welfare.
WADA’s Prohibited List identifies the substances and methods prohibited in- and out-of-competition, and in particular sports. The substances and methods on the List are classified by different categories (e.g., steroids, stimulants, gene doping).

The List comes into effect on 1 January of each year.

As a WADA Code Signatory, the FEI runs a testing programme for human athletes based on WADA’s List of Prohibited List of Substances and Methods and on the Code-compliant FEI Anti-Doping Rules for Human Athletes (ADRHA).

For further information, please consult the Clean Sport section of the FEI website here and the FAQ on the WADA website.

The birds were singing so loudly in the background that I though Lucia Montanarella was out in the countryside when I called her last week. She wasn’t though, she was in her apartment in the city of Lausanne, Switzerland where she has been based since being appointed Head of Media Operations by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) in January. Like so many others she was working from home that day. 

The new IOC headquarters at Olympic House, described as one of the most sustainable buildings in the world, opened its doors a year ago to mark the 125th anniversary of the organisation that was founded on 24 June 1894 by Pierre Coubertin. Previously the 500 staff were spread across four different locations in Lausanne, but the new building has brought them all together under one roof. However only 30% of the staff are permitted to gather in the office on any given day at the moment due to pandemic restrictions. 

I have called Lucia to talk about the career that has taken her from her early years in the world of equestrian sport to the very top of her chosen profession. I begin by asking how she is finding Swiss life? “For someone like me who enjoyed living in Brazil and comes from messy Rome it’s a big change. I’m the sort of person who gets intimidated when everything works, so I don’t fully enjoy all of this perfection all around me, although the lifestyle is brilliant!”, she says with a laugh. “Switzerland came out as the number one country through this pandemic and the reality is we’ve been very privileged, we’ve never been contained”, she explains. 

We reflect on the fact that her daughter, Agnese, is now a teenager and that her son, Pietro, was only a four-week-old baby when we both worked at the FEI European Eventing Championships at Burghley (GBR) in 1997 where she was Press Officer. He has just graduated from his Masters in Management at the London School of Economics this summer. The years pass so very quickly…..

Equestrian credentials

Lucia’s equestrian credentials go all the way back to her childhood on the family farm in the north of Rome. Her parents, who first met at the Socieda Hippica Romana, a riding centre near the Olympic Stadium in the heart of the city, bought a property close to the farm owned by the family of Italy’s most famous equestrian press manager, Caterina Vagnozzi of Equi Equipe, and that would prove pivotal in many ways.

Lucia’s father bred horses, and she rode the young ones and competed in Eventing at Junior and Young Rider level. “When I was at University, Caterina invited me to help her in her office. I was just 17 and it really all started from there. I always had a passion for writing, I was obsessed with it from when I was very little. When other children were playing with dolls I was asking for a typewriter”, she says.

She went on to write for a number of equestrian publications along with Rome’s daily newspaper, “Il Tempo”, and also did some radio reporting. “Being an equestrian journalist is a tough job and it was a tough job in those days as well”, she recalls. That led to a position with the Italian Equestrian Federation (FISE) which in turn led to her being appointed Press Officer for a number of events. 

“I was Press Officer in Pratoni for the World Equestrian Games (the third WEG, staged in Rome in 1998) and then for a few of the Italian legs of the FEI Jumping World Cup including Verona, and the Final of the World Cup series in Milan. I was also hired by Simon Brooks-Ward for a few years, so I worked at Olympia and Royal Windsor and Burghley and some shows in Spain including Oviedo and Seville”, she says. 

Olympic link

Her link with the Olympic Games began when the FEI recommended her as Equestrian Press Manager to SOCOG, the Organising Committee for the Sydney 2000 summer Olympic Games. “I moved to Sydney for a few months with Pietro who was only three at the time, and when I came back I was hired as Director of Communications for the WEG in Jerez (ESP in 2002). Then, a bit out of the blue, in January 2003 I was contacted by the Organising Committee of the Torino Games (Winter Olympics 2006),” she explains.

She laughs now when she recalls her first telephone call in response to the approach from Torino. “I said I didn’t like winter sport, I wasn’t a Juventus fan, I didn’t want to move to Torino and that I was wasn’t really interested! But still they called me back and at the same time my partner Flaminio, who is now my husband, was living in the North of Italy so it was a way for me to be closer to where he lives. So in the end I went for the interview and I was hired!”, she says. 

Looking back, Lucia believes she owes a great deal to the experience gained during her time in various roles in the world of equestrian sport. “Torino was a big jump into a different environment, but no matter what area of sport you work in the job is much the same. Whether it’s grabbing someone at Badminton and bringing them to the press conference or doing the same thing at the Olympic Games, there is one goal - to make sure the media gets the stories. The good practices of media services in equestrian sport taught me a lot”.

Made history

She made history at the Vancouver Winter Olympics in 2010 when appointed the first-ever female Press Chief in the 114-year history of the Olympic Games, and the first-ever “foreigner” to take up that position. She found herself in a dilemma however, because the day after she was offered the job she discovered she was pregnant with her daughter. She offered to step back in the circumstances but VANOG didn’t blink, encouraging her to travel to Vancouver and take it from there. It was a really big move further up that Olympic ladder. 

She says that making that piece of history made her very proud, but that she was “scared to death about the job and then I didn’t know how I was going to manage with this baby that would be born - but it all worked out well!”

Clearly Lucia’s determination to make things work, under any circumstances, is pretty unique. “I was hired by a woman, and her boss was totally against me. He said oh, she (Lucia) will never come back from Italy after she has the baby and she will let you down, but somehow she managed to keep me there”.

While she was in Vancouver, Lucia was contacted by the Bid Committee for the Rio Games to consult with them on the bid for the media services, which she did. When they won the bid in 2009 Lucia found herself in a funny situation. “Chicago was also going for the Games and everyone in Vancouver wanted the US to win because it would be a good transition from Canada to the US. So the morning of the announcement I was the only one supporting Rio. And I remember at 10 o’cock in the morning I had to hide with my friend Cassie under the desk to celebrate, because I was the only one who was happy that Rio got it!”

When she returned from Vancouver, she became a consultant in Media Operations for the IOC and a mentor for the Young Reporters Programme. “Then I did the London (2012) Games, and just beforehand Rio 2016 offered me the same job I had in Vancouver as Head of Press Operations and we moved to Rio (BRA) with the kids in January 2013 and stayed there until December 2016”, she says.

Upheaval

I’m staggered that anyone can cope with such constant upheaval in their lives. “You just have to take it one day at a time!”, Lucia says. “If you look at it then it’s a huge thing, but if you don’t look at it and take one day at a time it’s easy. Although as I’m talking to you now it feels like I am talking about someone else, I can hardly believe I’ve done all this, but I have!”

While she was in Rio, the IOC decided to turn the Olympic News Service into the Olympic Information Service (OIS) and Lucia was appointed Editor in Chief of the new service which successfully operated during the PyeongChang Winter Games in 2018. “Then my predecessor, Anthony Edgar, decided he wanted to retire to Australia and I was offered the position of Head of Media at the IOC starting in January 2020”, Lucia explains.

Tokyo

So what about Tokyo 2020? “I have a big calendar in my kitchen showing all the travel for this year including Tokyo, and now it’s all erased! I don’t want to sound cynical about what has been happening around the world and still is - it’s such a tragedy. But it’s super-interesting to work on the re-planning of the Games because it’s a one-off, and it gives us the opportunity to really look in depth at prioritising what is really needed”, she points out. 

"I can picture a lot of tears at the Olympic ceremony in Tokyo, because the opening of those Games will have such a strong meaning for all of us."

Lucia Montanarella 

But with so much uncertainty can the Games really go ahead? “I can tell you from the inside that we are really working with our heads down, looking at all kinds of different ideas, like what if we have to limit the number of people in the Mixed Zone, how to manage access, what if you have to take out every other seat in the tribune, everything has an impact. It’s a huge piece of work as you can imagine, and also re-confirming and re-negotiating because all the contracts are gone out the window”. It is indeed a mind-boggling scenario, but apparently most media are sticking with the prospect of travelling in 2021 when the Games are scheduled to run from 23 July to 8 August, and the Paralympic Games from 25 August to 5 September.

“We’ve been conducting a few surveys and nobody is saying that they will cut numbers. However there will be only five months between the Closing Ceremony in Tokyo and the Opening Ceremony of the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics, so we feel Beijing may be more affected from a media perspective. We are looking at introducing some tools that could help remote reporting, such as following press conferences online, but we are not yet convinced that we will have to introduce it for Tokyo. In the survey we conducted about offices in the Main Press Centre all of the companies that booked an office said they still want it” she points out.

Looking back

Looking back, Lucia says “all my career has been life deciding for me rather than me deciding my life!”, but it’s been a very successful formula for her. Despite her absence from it for quite some time she has managed to maintain many of her contacts in the horse world, and she treasures that. 

“Equestrian sport was the perfect springboard for me because it gave me confidence and great experience. When I’m at the Games I make sure to catch up with everyone I can. The equestrian part of my life was, and always will be, very important to me”, she concludes. 

The FEI Board allocated FEI Championships and key events for 2021 and 2022 during its three-day videoconference meeting this week.

In addition to the normal allocation process for the 2021 and 2022 Championships, following the disruption caused by the Covid-19 pandemic to many Championships on the 2020 Calendar, the Board considered a number of requests made by the affected 2020 Organisers and National Federations.

“The pandemic has created an extra layer of complexity for us,” FEI President Ingmar De Vos said. “The FEI General Regulations set out a timetable for when FEI Championships are held to avoid clashes between Continental and World Championships in the same categories in a given year so that National Federations do not have the cost of sending teams to major Championships in the same year, however, in these unprecedented circumstances, the FEI Board has agreed to deviate from this for specific events.”

“In some cases it has been possible to reach agreement with Championship Organisers to reschedule. Regrettably, in some events the FEI Board had to agree to cancellations in 2020 particularly with the Youth Championships, following a clear recommendation from the relevant Technical Committee, as a lack of recent competition mileage poses an unacceptable risk to athletes and horses. In each case we took the decision only after every avenue for a resolution was explored and exhausted.”

The Board agreed that any further Championships that need to be cancelled due to the Covid-19 pandemic before the end of December 2020 will not be held later in 2020 or rescheduled to 2021 to avoid further logistical difficulties with rearranging Championships in an Olympic and Paralympic year following the postponement of Tokyo 2020.

“The Covid-19 situation is still very fluid and no one can be certain of where it will lead us in the weeks and months to come,” the FEI President said.

“There may be other cancellations before the end of the year, but in order give our community clarity, the FEI will not reopen discussions on any other 2020 Championships. Any further cancellations will not be considered for reallocation or postponement.”

The Board made a unanimous decision not to reallocate the 2020 FEI Vaulting World Championships for Seniors, originally scheduled to be held in Flyinge (SWE). The Board expressed its gratitude to Saumur (FRA) for offering to host this Event later in the year, but travel restrictions, a lack of opportunities to compete and the impossibility social distancing for pas-de-deux and squad competitions were instrumental in the FEI Board decision.

The Board also decided to confirm the cancellation of the 2020 FEI Eventing European Championships for Ponies originally allocated to Strzegom (POL) as the alternate dates offered by the Organisers in Poland were not in line with a Board resolution passed in April that Youth and Pony Championships should not take place outside the school holidays. As there was no possibility of holding FEI Eventing European Championships for Juniors and Young Riders during school holidays, for athlete and horse welfare reasons, the cancellation of these Championships at Hartpury (GBR) was also confirmed.

The Board followed the unanimous recommendation of the FEI Jumping Committee to confirm the cancellation and not reschedule the 2020 FEI Jumping European Championship for Young Riders, Juniors & Children (originally allocated to Vilamoura) and the FEI Jumping European Ponies Championships (originally allocated to Strzegom) due to concerns that athletes and horses will not have had the opportunity to prepare fully for these important Championships and to avoid any risk to athletes and horses. Vilamoura will now host the Championships in 2021, which had originally been allocated to the Spanish venue at Oliva, but following a proposal put forward by the two organisers and approved by the Board, Oliva will now host the Championships in 2022. Both editions will be held within the school holiday period.

The Board unanimously agreed that the FEI Jumping World Challenge Final 2020 would not be allocated.

The Board approved the postponement of the FEI Driving European Championship for Young Drivers, Juniors & Children 2020 in Lamotte-Beuvron (FRA) to 2021. The Board confirmed that the age limits applicable in 2021 will apply to these Championships in 2021.

The Board also approved the postponement of the FEI Para Driving World Championship for Singles 2020 in Schildau (GER) to next year.

The Board decided that Organisers, such as Hartpury (GB), whose Championships had been cancelled in 2020 due to the pandemic were eligible to enter bid processes for future unallocated editions of the Championships even though the deadline for submission of bids had passed.

The FEI Board decided to defer any decisions regarding all Reining Championships scheduled for allocation to a later date until a decision on next steps for FEI Reining had been confirmed.

Discussions are ongoing with the Spanish Equestrian Federation and Vic, the Organiser of the FEI Endurance World Championship for Young Horses 2020 and the FEI Endurance European Championship for Young Riders & Juniors 2020. More information will be provided regarding these Championships shortly.

The Board also decided to postpone allocation of the FEI Endurance World Championships 2022 to its meeting in November to allow for a further review of the bids received from Dubai (UAE), Padise (EST), Riyadh (KSA) and Verona, Isola della Scala (ITA) and for further follow-up with the bidders.

The final allocations are as follows:

FEI Championships 2020 (postponed to 2021)

*FEI Driving European Championship for Young Drivers, Juniors & Children – Lamotte-Beuvron (FRA), dates TBC
*FEI Para Driving World Championship for Singles – Schildau (GER), dates TBC

*The above postponements were both approved as Emergency Board Resolutions under Article 20.3 of the FEI Statutes.

FEI Championships & Finals 2021
Jumping
- South American Jumping Championships for Young Riders, Juniors, Pre-Juniors and Children – Carrasco, Montevideo (URU), 7-13 September 2021
- FEI Jumping European Championships for Young Riders, Juniors & Children – Vilamoura, dates TBC
Driving
- FEI Driving World Championship for Young Horses – Mezohegyes (HUN), dates TBC

FEI Championships & Finals 2022
Jumping
- FEI Jumping European Championships for Young Riders, Juniors & Children – Oliva (ESP), dates TBC
Dressage
- FEI Dressage European Championship for Juniors & Young Riders – Hartpury (GBR), dates TBC
Eventing
- FEI Eventing European Championship for Juniors & Young Riders – Hartpury (GBR), dates TBC
Driving
- FEI Driving European Championship for Young Drivers, Juniors & Children – Ászár-Kisbér (HUN), dates TBC
- FEI Driving World Championship for Singles, Haras du Pin (FRA), dates TBC
Vaulting
- FEI Vaulting European Championship for Juniors, Kaposvár (HUN), 27-31 July

FEI Driving World Cup™ Series Season 2020/2021
The legs of the FEI Driving World Cup™ series for the 2020-2021 season were allocated as follows:

• Lyon (FRA)        31 October-1 November 2020
• Maastricht (NED)    6-7 November 2020
• Stuttgart (GER)     11-15 November 2020
• Budapest (HUN)    28-29 November 2020
• Geneva (SUI)        12-13 December 2020
• London (GBR)        18-19 December 2020
• Mechelen (BEL)    26-30 December 2020
• Leipzig (GER)       14-17 January 2021

The Final of the FEI Driving World Cup™ 2021 has already been allocated to Bordeaux (FRA) on 4-7 February 2021.

FEI Dressage World Cup™ Series Season 2020 / 2021
The Board approved a change in venue for the Danish leg of the FEI Dressage World Cup™ Series 2020/21 from Herning to the National Equestrian Centre in Vilhelmsborg.

 

The FEI General Assembly 2020, which was due to be held in Johannesburg (RSA) in November, has been cancelled and will now be held online due to Covid-19 social distancing requirements and travel restrictions.

The decision was approved by the FEI Board during its three-day videoconference meeting this week, and the Board also gave its unanimous support to allocate next year’s FEI General Assembly to Johannesburg.

“The safety of our community is our highest priority and although it is regrettable, cancelling our in-person General Assembly this year and going online was the responsible thing to do,” FEI President Ingmar De Vos said.

“We are very grateful to the National Federation of South Africa for the support and flexibility they have shown, as well as their willingness to host our General Assembly next year when the situation will hopefully have improved for everyone.

“We are lucky to live in a time where it is possible to meet virtually, even though face-to-face meetings and discussions keep us together as a community.”

With the pandemic legally defined as “force majeure” in Switzerland, the country’s Federal government has adopted ad hoc temporary measures to facilitate the organisation of General Assembly meetings for Swiss based associations like the FEI.

Under these special regulations, the FEI is permitted to hold its General Assembly electronically. Other large international gatherings, including next month’s IOC Session, will also be held online.

The FEI is currently considering a number of electronic solutions for running the General Assembly online and will communicate these to National Federations in due course

“While we are of course disappointed not to be able to hold the FEI General Assembly in South Africa this year, we appreciate the confidence that the FEI has shown to us by giving us the opportunity to host the General Assembly next year,” President of the National Federation of South Africa Adv Willem Edeling SC said.

“It will be the first time that an international equestrian gathering of this scale will be held in South Africa and we look forward to welcoming delegates from around the world to our world class meeting facilities. 2021 is the centenary of the FEI, and we feel privileged that our event will form part of the 100-year celebrations.”

About the FEI General Assembly

The FEI General Assembly is a platform for discussions and voting on the major decisions of the FEI and the governance of the sport. It is held in a different location every year.

The General Assembly governs the overall direction, development and management of the FEI’s disciplines worldwide. Elections are held at the General Assembly and decisions are taken, by vote, on changes to FEI Statutes, long-term strategies, FEI budgets and important equestrian matters.

The FEI has today launched the FEI eDressage™ Online platform in partnership with Black Horse One (BHO) and SAP, to provide a unique environment for FEI registered Dressage and Para Dressage athletes to boost their training and development.

FEI registered athletes can upload videos to the FEI eDressage™ Online platform every week for their FEI Dressage tests to be judged anonymously by a pool of FEI 5* level Dressage and Para Dressage judges. In the first phase, a number of videos will be randomly selected and athletes will then be provided with feedback on their performance and given pointers for improvement.

“This new platform is yet another example of the ways in which technology can be introduced into equestrian sport to transform training techniques,” FEI Commercial Director Ralph Straus said.

“Athletes now have the opportunity to have their tests remotely evaluated by a group of top level judges and to receive key insights that could benefit their performances.

“While the current pandemic highlights the value of a platform like this to athlete training when travel and competition restrictions exist, it can also be particularly useful to athletes residing in remote regions of the world, who would otherwise be unable to avail of the international expertise provided through this platform.”

Although the platform has been designed primarily with the horse and athlete in mind, it has the potential to become a valuable source of content for training FEI Officials in close collaboration with the FEI’s online e-learning platform, FEI Campus. The user-generated content would allow the FEI to improve the video material used in training programmes for FEI Dressage and Para Dressage judges.

The FEI eDressage™ Online platform is not the first time software development company Black Horse One, and the market leader in enterprise application software SAP, have come together with the FEI to create unique technological solutions for the sport.

While previous initiatives have been created to enrich the competition experience for live audiences and judges, the FEI eDressage™ Online platform has been specifically created for a non-competitive environment. Tests will not be judged and no rankings will be provided, but performances will be critiqued by an elite group of judges purely for training purposes.

"It is an absolute pleasure for us to launch the FEI eDressage Online platform together with the FEI and SAP, our close partner for many years now,” CEO of Black Horse One Daniel Göhlen said.

“We at Black Horse One provide innovative, high-performance software solutions specialised in equestrian sports and see this new platform as a fantastic technological development to support athletes all over the world, especially during these current uncertain times. The FEI eDressage Online platform is built on the basis of our paperless judging solution eDressage and benefits from several of our other innovations which have been supported by SAP and established by the FEI."

SAP Director of Strategic Partnerships in Equestrian, Henrike Paetz, also welcomed the initiative. “The launch of the new FEI eDressage Online platform is another milestone in our partnership with the FEI and long-standing cooperation with Black Horse One,” she said.

“Providing a virtual training and feedback environment for international athletes is an innovative way to stay connected and up-to-speed during these challenging times and beyond and reflects our ambition as the Official Analytics Sponsor of the FEI Dressage World Cup series. We are proud to once more help reinvent the athlete experience based on our SAP Cloud Platform technology.”

Previously, the two companies combined their expert knowledge in technology and fan engagement to create the award-winning Spectator Judging® app in 2017.

The app enables audiences at FEI Dressage World Cup™ events to get into the judge’s seat, with audience scores and rankings created in real-time during the competitions and then placed side-by-side with official results on the arena scoreboards. It’s a dynamic way for live audiences to participate more actively in the sporting action provided by the world’s top Dressage athletes and their horses.

A further collaboration between SAP and Black Horse One in 2018 led to the development of the Dressage Paperless Judging software, a system allowing FEI Dressage and Para Dressage competitions to be scored without a scribe having to write down each mark on an FEI Dressage score sheet. The Paperless Judging system was designed to deliver finished and signed scores and comments to athletes immediately after each test, and also maintain fan engagement by reducing the time between the end of a competition and the awards ceremony.

“The beauty of the FEI eDressage Online platform is that it has the potential to grow and develop over time and become something larger than we initially imagined,” FEI Director Information & Sports Technology Gaspard Dufour explained. “For developments like these to really impact a sport, it is necessary that our technological partners understand equestrian and the needs of our stakeholders. Long-term collaborations like ours show that having the time to grow and develop together can impact the industry in a meaningful way.”