Germany Disbands Olympic Equestrian Teams

The Presidential Board of the German Equestrian Federation held a special meeting today, May 28, with the German Olympic Committee for Equestrian Sports (Deutsches Olympiade-Komitee für Reiterei) and decided to disband the national equestrian teams for all three Olympic disciplines of dressage, eventing and show jumping.
   
This drastic decision follows yet another scandalous German doping incident.
   
An independent commission of the German Olympic Sports Federation (Deutscher Olympischer Sportbund) will examine the riders and German Federation officials. This commission will analyze the situation in top performance sport and give recommendations to the German Federation on how to deal with the current medication and doping problems. The recommendations of the DOSB commission will also include suggestions about possible sanctions against officials and riders.

"With the dissolving of the teams, we want to take an important step towards credibility,” said German Federation President Breido Count zu Rantzau. “Before a rider can be admitted to a team, he must face the examinations of the special commission and must express his or her attitude and behavior as a top rider.”

No rider will be considered for team membership unless he or she has gone before the members of the DOSB. This work will start in June.

"Thoroughness goes before speed, therefore we expect that the commission will take much longer until a final report will be available," continued Count zu Rantzau.

Media statements made by Olympic show jumper Ludger Beerbaum were also a topic of discussion at the emergency meeting.

He told the Frankfurter Allgemein Sonntagszeitung, "Over the years, I have arranged myself in a way to exhaust what is possible. In the past, I had the attitude: What cannot be found is allowed."

Based on this statement and a similar statement made during an interview with German Public Television (Zweites Deutsches Fernsehen) in Hamburg, Beerbaum will not be considered for any German Nations Cup teams for the time being. This will be effective until the DOSB commission has made its decision about him.

The situation with doping in Germany began escalating in the beginning of May, when the German newspaper Der Spiegel broke a story about Marco Kutscher’s horse Cornet Obolensky receiving an unauthorized shot of lactanase and arnica after the first round of the Nations Cup at the 2008 Olympic Games.

Kutscher confessed in a TV interview that his horse had received these medications and collapsed afterwards. The team veterinarian, Björn Nolting, said that he and Kutscher would have spoken with the FEI veterinarian about the medication, but the groom gave the shot before they had a chance. Nolting is no longer working for the German show jumping team.