Herning 2022: Attention shifts to Jumping as five Olympic places up for grabs

After a fantastic two days' action in the dressage that saw seven countries qualify a full team of three athletes to Paris 2024, attention at the 2022 FEI World Championships in Herning, Denmark, now turns to the jumping competition.

In Olympic equestrian, there are three different disciplines: dressage, eventing, and jumping; each of which have a team event and an individual event. The teams are made up of three athletes, and each team member gets an individual place. The remaining individual places are filled by athletes that belong to countries that missed out on a team, at most one athlete per country.

In jumping there are twenty teams. The first qualification spot goes to hosts France, and then the five highest-ranked teams in Herning will qualify a place. The majority of the other places are earned in regional qualification events later in the year. Of course, the sixty team members will also qualify a place in the individual event, meaning fifteen individual places will also be won in Herning.

The first day of competition is on 10 August, with a day's break (for the individual competition) on 11 August followed by the second and final day on 12 August. The teams are: Mexico, Spain, Ireland, Belgium, Australia, Germany, the Netherlands, Colombia, Norway, Great Britain, France, Brazil, Italy, Canada, Israel, Austria, Argentina, Switzerland, Japan, Denmark, the United States, and Sweden. If France come in the top five, as they have already qualified, the spot will go to whoever finished sixth instead.

Each team has four members and the highest three scores will be taken into consideration: the only exception being Israel who has just three members. In Tokyo 2020, this event yielded six places, which went to the US, Sweden, Germany, Switzerland, the Netherlands, and Australia. Olympic places make an already exciting event even spicier and in this unpredictable sport the top nations will hope to qualify with the minimum of fuss.

Patrick Green

Writer, Totallympics News

Photo: FEI / Richard Juilliart