Martin Fuchs placed second at the Longines FEI Jumping World Cup in Gothenburg last year. © FEI/Liz Gregg
The FEI World Cup finals in Las Vegas next month and the entire Event Rider Masters 2020 series has been cancelled due to ever-increasing threat posed by coronavirus.
In the last 24 hours, COVID-19 has spread rapidly across the globe, forcing tough decisions to be made about the foreseeable future of equestrian sports.
The FEI has recommended all FEI competitions to be cancelled, while several major competitions have been added to the long list of events cancelled or postponed in past few days.
In a statement the FEI President Ingmar De Vos said, “It is very regrettable that next month’s FEI World Cup Finals in Las Vegas have had to be cancelled, but the decision was out of our hands.”
“Since the FEI World Cup series began in 1978 for Jumping and in 1985 for Dressage, the Finals have never had to be cancelled before, but the global concerns about the spread of the virus and the travel restrictions imposed by the US Government have meant that the Finals are one of many major sporting events impacted by this outbreak.”
“Like everyone in our community, we are disappointed, not only for the athletes who have qualified for the Finals, but also for Las Vegas Events and US Equestrian, and of course our top partner Longines, but the health, well-being and safety of our athletes, officials and our fans has to be our top priority. We hope we can alleviate that disappointment by returning to Las Vegas for a wonderful FEI World Cup Finals in the future.”
In a further statement recommending the total cancellation of all their events, the FEI said, “The spread of the Coronavirus Covid-19 has taken a rapid turn for the worse and sport worldwide is affected.”
“We as a community have to make our contribution to limit the spread of this virus, as the sooner it can be contained, the sooner we will be able to get back to normal life and normal sport. And this is something that every other sport is doing.”
“We can guarantee you that we are monitoring the situation hour-by-hour and that we are constantly looking at what specific situations need to be addressed. Our thoughts are with all of you and we strongly believe that our community will do the right thing and work to support each other through this crisis.”
The FEI said all ticket buyers and exhibitors will be issued full refunds and the Las Vegas Events ticket office will contact all ticket holders on the process starting the week of 16 March.
The Event Rider Masters also announced their 2020 series would be cancelled, after conducting a full risk assessment.
In a statement they said, “the ERM 2020 series is spread over 3 countries, all of whom are currently affected by Covid-19 and involves a production team of 60 people travelling from 6 different nations. The logistics of moving the multinational production team from venue to venue is impossible to implement in a manner that has an acceptable risk level.”
Currently, all individual host venue events in Burnham Market, Chatsworth, Arville and Jardy are planning on running their own events.
Sources: FEI and Event Rider Masters press releases
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