Equestrian Park main arena. Photo by FEI / Yusuke Nakanishi.
We’re eagerly anticipating the postponed 2020 Olympics in Tokyo, which are set to kick off on July 23 with the eventing beginning on Thursday, July 29 and concluding on Monday, August 2. NBC Sports will be providing a bulk of the live stream, including all equestrian disciplines, on its online platform. Tokyo is on Japan Standard Time, 13 hours ahead of Eastern time and 16 ahead of Pacific time. This will make for some odd viewing hours, but we know you’ll be tuning in for every second of action.
In anticipation of Tokyo’s high heat and humidity during the summer, precautions have been taken when making the schedule with equine athletes in mind. To prepare, organizers hosted a Ready Steady Tokyo Test Event in 2019 to test all precautionary measures as well as timing for the equestrian athletes. To beat the heat, all three phases of eventing competition will be run either in the morning or much later in the day; in fact, show jumping will conclude under the lights in the evening of August 2.
The published schedule for the NBC live stream of eventing is as follows (note, Eastern time is listed first, and the date listed is the date the stream will be shown in the U.S.):
- Thursday, July 29, 7:30 p.m. EST / 8:30 a.m. JST: Dressage
- Friday, July 30, 4:30 a.m. EST / 5:30 p.m. JST: Dressage
- Friday, July 30, 7:30 p.m. EST / 8:30 a.m. JST: Dressage
- Saturday, July 31, 6:45 p.m. EST / 7:45 a.m. JST: Cross Country
- Monday, Aug 2, 4 a.m. EST / 5 p.m. JST: Show Jumping (Team and Individual)
The main Olympic hub for NBC will be set at NBCOlympics.com. At this time, additional information on any costs, etc. have not been released – we will provide more updates as they are made available. For now, bookmark the NBC Olympics Equestrian page for the latest live stream updates – and keep it locked right here on Eventing Nation for much more to come. You can also reference the Equestrian Competition Schedule on the Tokyo 2020 website here.
Update on July 9:You will need to have a TV provider to log in for the NBC stream. Content will also be available on NBC’s streaming service, Peacock, but it’s unclear whether or not all sports and streams will be available with that option.
To read more coverage of Tokyo 2020 on Eventing Nation, click here.
