We are now only one week away from the 2009 Global Champions Tour Final in Doha, Qatar and the organisers are pleased to announce that the new European Champion, France’s Kevin Staut has been invited to replace the sadly injured John Whitaker. Whitaker broke his leg when he fell from Peppermill, the horse he was planning to bring to the Final.
The addition of Kevin means the Final will feature the current World, Olympic and European Champions (Jos Lansink, Eric Lamaze and Kevin respectively), the Rolex Ranking’s number one, Marcus Ehning and the leading lady, Edwina Alexander. The GCT will also be welcoming Juan Carlos Garcia as a wild card rider, who has the unique distinction of winning a team silver medal in both show jumping and three day eventing at the 2009 European Championships. Together with our other superstar riders, the GCT is confident this will be a Final to be remembered.
This week many of these riders competed in the CSI***** in Lyon, France, which may proved to be something of a dress rehearsal for next weeks 900’000Euro GCT Final Grand Prix. Eric Lamaze headed a Finalists 1,2,3,4 in the Master’s class and it took former World Cup winner Beat Mandli to prevent a similar result in the Grand Prix. The Swiss was chased home by Albert Zoer, Ben Maher, Marcus Ehning, Harrie Smolders and Patrick McEntee. Ben also collected the leading rider award. Alvaro de Miranda was another GCT winner at the show.
The classes begin on Wednesday, November 11th and will culminate with Saturday evening’s Grand Prix. Details of the program can be found on the website www.globalchampionstour.com. Television coverage will be shown live on Eurosport, Universal Sports-USA and Al Jazeera Sport-Middle East Countries. The event will also be broadcast on Eurosport Asia-Pacific, Equidia-France and Supersport-South Africa.
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