Host cities for the FEI World Championships 2022 and other major events up to 2023/2024 were allocated today by the FEI Board at its in-person meeting in the Russian capital Moscow.
All three equestrian disciplines – Jumping, Dressage, and Eventing – have been formally confirmed for the Paris 2024 Olympic program. In addition, the six events – team and individual across each of the three disciplines – and the full quota of 200 athlete/horse combinations have also been endorsed.
Given the current Covid-19 pandemic situation the Eventing Committee met for monthly videoconference calls between March November 2020, led by the Chair David O’Connor and attended by all the Eventing Committee Members and FEI Eventing Department. The Eventing Committee videoconference calls included many discussions to finding solutions to the ramifications of the Covid-19 virus in order to encourage the organization of eventing competitions, Nations Cup, and Championships.
During the inaugural online IOC session today, the Tokyo Organizing Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games (TOCOG) confirmed the Olympic Games competition schedule for 2021. For equestrian sport, the competition dates have been moved forward by one day so as to mirror the 2020 daily schedule whereby the equestrian events which were due to start on Saturday, July 25, 2020 and finish on Saturday, August 8, 2020 will now run from Saturday, July 24, 2021 to Saturday, August 7, 2021.
The FEI has published its Policy for Enhanced Competition Safety during the COVID-19 pandemic, aimed at assisting organizers and national federations with the safe resumption of international equestrian events in line with national and local restrictions.
The FEI European Championships in the Olympic and Paralympic disciplines of jumping, eventing, dressage, and para dressage will not be held in 2021 due to the revised dates for the Tokyo Games next year. European Championships in the non-Olympic disciplines will still be organized in 2021.
FEI.TV the FEI’s online television platform, will be providing all its coverage of past events and special equestrian features free of charge to everyone while live sport is on hold until end of June. Under normal circumstances, FEI.TV live-streams all major FEI Series and Championships, with an extensive range of replays, special features and historic events coverage available on-demand combining to provide unparalleled coverage of equestrian sport year-round.
The FEI President has welcomed the announcement of the new dates for the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games, which will run from July 23 to August 8, 2021, and for the Paralympic Games from August 24 until September 5, 2021.
The FEI is to create a series of discipline-specific task forces to evaluate the impact on the FEI Calendar of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has resulted in multiple event cancellations and the postponement of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic and Paralympic Games until 2021.
We are facing an extraordinary situation with the COVID-19 pandemic, and we have all had to adapt both our personal and our working lives in order to play our role in protecting the health and welfare of our nations. This is our collective responsibility and it must be a priority, but it does come at a cost.
Following last week’s communiqué to National Federations on the recommendations from the World Health Organization (WHO) regarding Mass Gatherings and the necessity of Event Organizers to conduct a full risk assessment together with local authorities, the FEI has issued a further message to the equestrian community: