Dressage-News

By KENNETH J. BRADDICK

Denmark with a full team of four horses and riders, two Russian combinations and individuals from another 10 nations will go to the summer Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro with the end of qualifying Sunday, according to an unofficial tally of the rankings by dressage-news.com.

The pairs that made it through the year-long individual qualifying process will join 10 nations that each earned places for four combinations through championships, a special event and as the host as well as four individual combinations already in the lineup.

Denmark was the only nation to qualify enough horses and riders to make up a so-called “composite” team and join the Nations Cup lineup in Rio.

The Dominican Republic and Palestine will be represented in Olympic dressage for the first time.

For Yvonne Losos de Muñiz qualification is vindication after losing out in 2012 when the FEI ruled that Brazilian riders could qualify at local shows with three national judges that was intended for the World Games two years earlier but carried over to the London Games.

Canada was able to qualify two individuals and not a team under a new requirement limiting the 2015 Pan American Games to allocating one team–won by the United States.

The individual qualifying ended with a rash of shows around the world and created controversy for some results that were considerably higher than previously awarded.

The final qualification, to be confirmed by the FEI, International Equestrian Federation, in the next day or so:

Teams (11 with 44 combinations total): Australia, Brazil (host), Denmark, France, Germany, Great Britain, Japan, Netherlands, Spain, Sweden and United States of America.

Individuals (16): Austria, Belgium, Canada (2), Dominican Republic, Ireland, Italy, Mexico, South Africa, South Korea, New Zealand, Palestine, Russia (2), Switzerland, Ukraine.

The places for the Olympics are awarded to the nations and each country selects the horses and riders to go without regard to which particular combinations earned the qualification.

The individual combinations that qualified through the latest rankings:
Groups
A – North Western Europe — Anna Kasprzak/Donnperignon (DEN), Mikala Gundersen/My Lady (DEN);
B – South Western Europe — Victoria Max-Theurer (AUT), Fanny Verliefden/Annarico (BEL);
C – Central & Eastern Europe; Central Asia — Inessa Merkulova/Mister X (RUS), Marina Aframeeva/Vosk (RUS);
D – North America — Megan Lane/Caravella;
E – Central & South America — Yvonne Losos de Muñiz/Foco Loco-W (DOM);
F – Africa & Middle East — Christian Zimmerman/Cinco de Mayo (PLE);
G – South East Asia, Oceania — Julie Brougham/Vom Feinsten (NZL).

Open rankings (6):
Valentina Truppa/Eremo del Castegna (ITA);
Judy Reynolds/Vancouver K (IRL);
Marcela Krinke-Susmelj/ Smeyers Molberg (SUI);
Agnete Kirk Thinggaard/Jojo AZ (DEN);
Lars Petersen/Mariett (DEN);
Inna Logutenkova/Don Gregorius (UKR).