The return of golf to the Olympic Games has been controversial, before a single ball is putt. During the British Open in July, the world’s best female golfer, Inbee Park, slammed the Rio qualification process for excluding so many top players. No country can have more than four players of either sex. This will work against American men, who make up 30 of the top-ranked 60 players, and South Korean women, 22 of the top 60.
Ms Park was indignant that other countries would be able to send players ranked 300 or 400 to the Games. Well, welcome to our world.
If Rio was next week, seven American show jumpers, seven Germans, five Belgians, three Brits, three French, six Irish and five Dutch all ranked in the world top 100 will be sitting at home, watching on TV as riders ranked significantly lower than them crash round the opening leg. That has always been the way. I guess riders become resigned to it at an early stage in their careers.
Some will have cheered themselves up by selling a good horse to a country that has got a ticket. This, in turn, gives the emerging teams a better chance of doing well on the day (look what happen to Saudi Arabia at London 2012) while doing nothing to encourage the next generation in that country’s domestic sport (ditto).
The Olympics have only ever involved some of the very best of the world. Technically, it’s only accurate to say the Olympic riders are the best of the countries represented.
For sure, the OIympics would be a much less interesting place for spectators and media without such heroic failures as Eddie the Eagle, GB’s not-very-airborne ski jumper, Eric the Eel, the sluggish swimmer from Equatorial Guinea, or the Jamaican bobsleigh team.
Whereas their derring-do match the original Olympic ideal, the presence nowadays of the not-very-good brigade is less easy to square with the amount of unreturned private investment in regions where the Olympic quota is inversely proportional to the level of attainment, and the fact that public funding for national teams is linked to Games participation.
It’s a good thing that the jumping format does not permit the not-very-good to get further than the first round: equestrian seriously doesn’t need an Eddie or an Eric. It would inevitably involve “bad pictures,” the term stake-holders often use to mean the sight of a hopelessly over-faced horse and rider, which is undesirable for the image of our sport, never mind the welfare of his shell-shocked steed.
After the recent Furusiyya Nations Cup final at Barcelona, though, the qualification process for jumping certainly looked specious when Belgium, stand-out team of the entire European season, topped the leader-board throughout, while having failed to qualify for Rio on one bad day in the European championships at Aachen.
For those that don’t follow it in detail, the Furusiyya system in Europe is a convoluted affair, reflecting the huge number of national teams (26) and the large number of Furusiyya Nations Cup opportunities available in Europe (16). There are two seeded divisions. The best 10 are in the first division. The two countries ranked bottom at the end of each season are relegated to division two, comprising 16 further European sides, from which the best two upgrade. There is the further complication that teams must nominate in advance just four Nations Cups from which their points will count. Belgium got it right, winning two and placing second and fourth.
Chat about the injustice of Belgium not going to Rio had already started before they beat 18 other teams in the Barcelona’s opening contest. Debate increased after Belgium cruised through to win the finale two days, returning two of the mere seven clean rounds and with Gregory Wathelet and Conrad de Jus securing a 200,000 Euros bonus for having jumped clean on the Thursday as well.
The Furusiyya final was one of the best classes I have seen in my life, and I am certain that Wathelet is a future Olympic medallist – though he is now reliant on the individual allocation to get to Rio.
In stark contrast, Spain qualified for Rio at Aachen when already relegated from Furusiyya Europe division one, having finished no better than fourth at any of their counting shows. They only jumped at Barcelona by virtue of being host. On the Thursday, they were so out of touch after the third rider rotation that Sergio Alvarez Moya elected not to go on Carlo. That was a little tough on the home crowd, for Barcelona puts on a great show. In the consolation class, Spain finished third to last.
Ireland, who lost out on an Olympic spot to Spain by just fractions of a fault at Aachen, have meanwhile appealed direct to the Court of Arbitration for Sport over the Cian O’Connor/running steward incident at Aachen. On current form (and with only one rider in the top 100) you almost have to wonder if Spain would have the will to counter-appeal if CAS backs the Irish.
Last April, the FEI Sports Forum discussed use of the Nations Cup series for WEG-qualification. That change would be easier to apply because the FEI owns WEG.
Because the Nations Cup is a more accurate barometer of consistency, I asked John Roche, FEI director of jumping, if the examples of Belgium and Spain suggested it was time use Nations Cups for Olympic qualification too, instead of the single-event approach. Roche said the FEI is already talking with the IOC over format changes in connection with the 2020 “Olympic Agenda.”
“The question may be premature, and I am not a fortune-teller, but qualification is one of the topics under discussion,” he told me.
I am, of course, acutely aware that Canada would have been massively disadvantaged had this scenario already applied! Fear not. Any change to the Olympic qualifying would have to be approved by the IOC and could not take effect until 2024, so there is ample time to sort out a replacement Nations Cup venue for Spruce!
