Abdelkebir Ouaddar and Quickly de Kreisker competing as individuals at the 2016 Summer Olympics.
© Mohammad Hassanzadeh/Tasnim news
Olympic qualification confirmed for Morocco
The Moroccan show jumping team have confirmed their qualification for Tokyo 2021, in what will be the country’s first equestrian team appearance at an Olympics.
The team had qualified for the Tokyo Olympics last year at the CSIO in Rabat, however there was still a question of validating this qualification for 2021. Last weekend, showjumpers Samy Colman, Ali Al Ahrach, Ghali Boukaa and Abdelkebir Ouaddar secured the qualification at the Sunshine Tour in Vejer de la Frontera where the “green jackets with red collars” finished seventh out of seventeen nations in the Nations Cup event.
The 2016 Rio Olympics saw Abdelkebir Ouaddar and Quickly de Kreisker (pictured) made history when they became the first Moroccan equestrian combination to compete at an Olympic Games (they competed on an individual basis). In 2021, Morocco will now be present for the first time as a team at an Olympic Games – and the country also has a rider qualified individually in the dressage.
The Moroccan riders are fine-tuning their Olympic preparation in Spain on a circuit where many of the best riders in the world are currently competing against each other in the absence of indoor competitions in Europe. Preparation is being carried out under the watchful eye of the new national coach, Belgium’s Philippe Lejeune – who was the individual world champion at WEG in 2010.
The Olympic equestrian events will take place from July 24 to August 7, 2021 at the Equestrian Park of Setagaya, Japan, which had already hosted the equestrian events in 1964.
READ THE LATEST NEWS ARTICLES HERE
