A beautiful day to be in China. Photo courtesy of the CrossCountry App.
The Asian Games is one of the biggest continental sporting events in the world, and like the Olympics, the format of which it largely mirrors, it comes around just once every four years. Equestrians are well-represented, with dressage, jumping, and eventing on the roster – and with several Asian countries on the up and up over the last few years in our sport, it’s going to be a fascinating competition to watch unfold. We’re doing our best to track down some livestreaming information for you, but in the meantime, we’re delighted to be able to share a first look at the CCI2*-L cross-country course that Germany’s Christian Zehe has designed at the Tonglu Equestrian Centre outside Hangzhou, China.
Talk about a work of art! Photo courtesy of CrossCountry App.
Our first impressions? First of all, that it’s just a beautiful looking course, particularly with the attention paid to detail: those carved wooden dragons in the arena, for example, are such a lovely nod to the area’s culture while also making for brilliant, readable fences. There’s also plenty of technicality around the breadth of the course, particularly for the level, and we can certainly expect it to exert plenty of influence.
Beyond that, though, it’s great to see how a Championship of this magnitude pulls people from all around the world into important roles and broaden’s eventings field of experts. Though the course designer is German, he’s assisted by China’s Li Wei and Wang Kai, which will bring further valuable experience and knowledge into East Asian competitions, and British Technical Delegate Andrew Griffiths is ably assisted by India’s Prabal Pratap Singh, similarly adding depth to the field of knowledge across the continent. This is also the first time a course in China has ever been on the CrossCountry App, further adding to the globalisation of the sport.
There are seven nations contesting the eventing, which began today with the first horse inspection. Five of those — China, Hong Kong, India, Japan, and Thailand — are fielding teams, while a further two — Uzbekistan and South Korea — have sent individuals. There are plenty of familiar faces on the roster; Olympians Alex Hua Tian, Bao Yingfeng, and Huadong Sun all appear in the Chinese team, and similarly, Thailand brings forward Olympians in Weerapat Pitakanonda and Korntawat Samran. Friend of EN Yu Xuan Su will ride for Hong Kong, as will 2008 Olympian Patrick Lam, and British-based rider Annie Ho, who’s already had a busy week at the Games: she also rode on the Hong Kong dressage team, helping them to a bronze medal.
You can keep an eye on the live scoring for the Asian Games here, and check out the dressage times here:
Dressage will begin at 8.00 a.m. CST tomorrow, September 30; Hanghzou is seven hours ahead of Great Britain and twelve hours ahead of East Coast US, so dressage will, as such, begin at 3.00 a.m. British time and 8.00 p.m. this evening East Coast time. Cross-country will take place on Sunday, October 1, again from 8.00 a.m. CST, and Monday, October 2, will be showjumping day, though a start time hasn’t yet been released.
For now, though, while we wait for the action to begin, let’s walk this course, thanks to the fine folks at CrossCountry App!
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