FEI Drops World Equestrian Games for 2022, Seeking Bids for Individual World Championships
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MANAMA, Bahrain, Nov. 17, 2018–The International Equestrian Federation disclosed Saturday it is dropping the requirement for a World Equestrian Games in 2022 and will accept bids for championships of individual disciplines. The FEI admitted that attempts to maintain for 2022 the combined championships held once every four years since 1990 “has not resulted in any realistic bids.”
Preference would be given to multi-discipline bids for 2022, the FEI said, while dressage and para-dressage should be combined.
The decision insisting on a single host for dressage, driving, endurance, eventing, jumping, reining, vaulting and para-dressage did not come as a surprise after two of eight WEGs required venue changes–1998 and 2018–when organizers did not have funding and no organizer came forward for 2022.
Ingmar de Vos, the FEI president was quoted in a statement, as stressing that “this does not necessarily mean the end of the FEI World Equestrian Games and bids to host the full seven-discipline Games for 2022 and 2026 will be considered. However, he made it clear that securing world championships for 2022 in the Olympic and Paralympic disciplines was crucial as these serve as qualifiers for the Paris 2024 Games.”
The Olympic disciplines are dressage, eventing and jumping.
Expressions of interest to host world championships would be sought by the end of February, 2019. This would be followed by workshops with bidders to understand their expectations and constraints. Bids would be fully evaluated over the spring/summer of next year.
Allocation of world championships for 2022 would be made at the time of the FEI General Assembly in November, 2019.
The FEI also considered a detailed report on the Tryon Games that were taken over by the Tryon International Equestrian Center with less than two years to go after the a Canadian organizing group dropped out when it could not raise money.
The report, the FEI said, highlighted the quality of the sport and the way it was delivered for all but endurance that was canceled after a botched start. A report on an investigation into the endurance event would be presented at the General Assembly next week.
An area of concern, the FEI said, was “late delivery of the venue facilities.”
