The FEI is establishing a high-level Presidential ethics panel to assess and further investigate practices among members of the German equestrian team.
This action is a step in an investigation being conducted further to information that has recently been made available to the FEI, supplemented with recent media reports including admissions by Marco Kutscher, a German jumping rider, and Björn Nolting, the former team veterinarian.
A report in German magazine Der Spiegel claims the metabolic-enhancer lactanase was given to one of the German team’s horses during the Equestrian Show-Jumping competition at the 2008 Olympic Games.
Eight months after the games finished, German rider Marco Kutscher said in the report, that a syringe containing arnica and another containing lactanase was administered to his horse Cornet Obolensky during competition.
“It is correct, my horse was treated with Arnica and Lactanase. Whether that was declared, I don”t know,” Kutscher is quoted as saying in the report by German sports agency SID.
The formation of this panel is in line with the FEI’s ongoing and comprehensive efforts on ensuring clean sport and horse welfare. It is an exceptional measure which reflects the potential involvement of representatives of a National Federation in behavior that could constitute violations of the FEI drug rules.
The objective of the ethics panel will be to thoroughly investigate this evidence and the surrounding circumstances and make recommendations to the President as to further action. The composition of the panel will be announced shortly.
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