On June 21 Horse Sport Ireland’s show jumping high performance director Michael Blake and eventing high performance director Sally Corscadden nominated their athlete/horse combinations, traveling reserve and alternates that are to be considered for selection by the Olympic Federation of Ireland for the show jumping and eventing disciplines.
The official selection of the athlete/horse combinations for both the show jumping and eventing disciplines at the Tokyo Olympics will be made by the Olympic Federation of Ireland in the coming days.
The show jumping nominated athlete/horse combinations, in alphabetical order are as follows:
• Bertram Allen on Pacino Amiro
• Darragh Kenny on VDL Cartello
• Cian O’Connor on Kilkenny P
Shane Sweetnam on Karlin Van’t Vennehof will be the traveling reserve. Michael Duffy on Zilton SL Z was named as an alternate.
The eventing nominated athlete/horse combinations, in alphabetical order are as follows:
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• Cathal Daniels on Rioghan Rua
• Sarah Ennis and Horseware Woodcourt Garrison
• Sam Watson on Tullabeg Flamenco
Austin O’Connor on Colorado Blue will be the traveling reserve. Joseph Murphy on Cesar V was named as an alternate.
Horse Sport Ireland’s dressage high performance director Johann Hinnemann has decided not to nominate a dressage team to OFI for the Tokyo Olympics. This decision was taken as several key members of the Irish team that had qualified for the Games are unfortunately no longer available for selection due to a combination of horse retirement, veterinary and medical reasons.
In consideration of the remaining qualified combinations, Hinnemann reviewed his Olympic nominations policy for dressage against the combinations available. Director Hinnemann advised the board that two combinations have not met the specific criteria as set by the director, and as such, the director is not in a position to nominate these combinations. The resulting consequence being that a team of three athlete-and-horse combinations cannot be fulfilled.
The Board of Horse Sport Ireland has decided, following careful deliberation, to accept the technical guidance of the director and formally withdraw the Irish dressage team quota allocation with the National Olympic Federation and the FEI. This difficult decision was founded on rational performance considerations and an informed technical position of our retained dressage expert.
Horse Sport Ireland understands that the Irish qualified combinations will be eligible pursuant to the reallocation of individual quota places and that one individual Olympic quota place may be offered to Ireland. Horse Sport Ireland understands that a final decision on the of reallocation of individual places will be known later this week. If this is the case, Horse Sport Ireland intends to avail of this position.
