10th WUC Equestrian starts with 1st Round of Dressage

AACHEN – After the past hot days the 10^th WUC Equestrian started today with perfect conditions for the first round of the dressage competition. Only half of the 78 riders from 26 competing nations qualified for the next round.

Mild weather for the first round of dressage yesterday, August 22^nd, in the Deutsche Bank Stadion. The 26 nations were divided into groups of three and each group was assigned the same horses. Under these conditions the judges were able to compare the performance of the riders without being influenced by the quality of the horses.

The best rider on each horse was directly qualified for the next round. To increase the number of qualified riders the competitors with the lowest difference of the result to the best rider on the same horse additionally entered the second round. 50 % of the riders were qualified – which means that of the 78 participants 39 move up towards the next round.

After a long day in the arena the qualified riders are finally set. A few teams even qualified with all three riders: Germany, Belgium, France, Ireland and the Netherlands will start under the best conditions for the team valuation in the second round dressage tomorrow. The second round will be rode rider by rider and the gained points will flow into the team score. Teams with less than three riders will have a very hard stand in the fight for a medal in the team results.

The other qualified riders are from the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Great Britain, the Republic of Korea, Luxembourg, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, the Russian Federation, Spain, Switzerland, Canada, Sweden and Japan. The members of the delegations from Finland, Kyrgyzstan, Guatemala, Romania and Algeria did not make it to the second round.

The individual results from the first round are not very significant due to the circumstance that most riders had different horses. But they gave an insight in the skills and preparations of the riders to handle an unknown horse.

After this successful and exciting start the next dressage competition started this morning at 8:30am followed by the third round at 2pm. The first round of show jumping will take place on Friday at 8.30am.

(Source: OC)

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