Endurance.Net Ridecamp Archives

Don't hold your breath. The UAE wanted an Olympic sport that they could compete/win in and went to the FEI top brass who assured them in 1999/2000 that if they could get enough countries competing in endurance, the Olympic Committee would consider including it. The Olympics came and went without endurance and with a few boatloads of bullion being spent on getting enough countries doing something that looked kind of like endurance.? The UAE presence in many of the target countries around the eastern Mediterranean has, oddly enough, diminished since 2004 or so and they seem to be concentrating on getting a good batch of rides going on their own turf so that they can compete against their cousins of the various emirates....since these are the people that they really like winning against anyway.

The IOC has been lobbying to get rid of equestrian competition in the Olympics for quite a while, so I suspect that the FEI agenda (they got some major financial backing from the cash prizes offered by the UAE in endurance for a while) and the IOC agenda were not in synch.? AHHH, politics and finance.? Who needs soap operas when the world is out there?

Maryanne

cynically in Cairo

On Feb 20, 2006, at 8:09 AM, Susan Favro wrote:

I stopped by the Arab Nationals today (on my way to San Antonio for convention) and saw a booth for the Olympics but no one was staffing the booth when I went by. Seeing their booth there got me to thinking about endurance as an Olympic sport.

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I had heard that there was some activity on getting endurance set up as an Olympic event. Has anyone else heard anything on this?

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What’s the process to get it to happen?

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[Double-posted to RideCamp and AERC]