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Lizzie Greenwood-Hughes

Team King confident as storms ease in Hong Kong


Hong Kong

Things have calmed down a bit here now - storm Kummuri is now apparently described as a category 3 and this buzzing city is alive again.

It's still raining cats and dogs though!

Everyone has coped very well with the disruption, but the weather has taken it's toll on the equine contingent.

For instance, 24 show-jumping horses are currently stranded in Amsterdam and Dubai including the American team, unable to make the final leg of their journey because of the poor landing conditions here.

Japanese rider Yoshiaki Oiwa practices in the rain on Georgeous George

.

Those horses already in Hong Kong had to be kept in their stables most of the day and all the riders were ordered to stay at their hotel.

As the storm raged on Wednesday morning, I spoke to the British eventing team vet - Jenny Hall and although she said there were no problems at that time, she told me if things continued some of the horses may develop muscle cramping as they need regular exercise.

It's like a sprinter fit and ready for the 100m final who then finds himself locked inside the bathroom all day!

The weather did improve later on and eventually the riders were allowed into the venue to ride their horses.

I sneaked a peek at some of them exercising in the arena and they looked really well.

I also saw the New Zealand comeback king Mark Todd who' came out of retirement as part of a dinner party dare to make it to these Olympics.

Rumour has it he's spending more time in the gym than any other rider here and he
certainly looks good.

I then caught-up with the British team. It was great to see them all again. Mary King looked and sounded super cool as always.

She's flown out 'Team King' for the games including her 12 year old daughter Emily, who is following in Mum's footsteps as a seriously talented young rider.

I was interested to find out if the British riders felt the Olympic spirit was with them here in Hong Kong as obviously all the other athletes are in Beijing.

They all agreed it was and Daisy Dick told me that although she would have liked to rub shoulders with top sprinters and rowers in the gym she thought there was an "amazing buzz" here.

I agree with her. Hong Kong has really bought into the Olympic thing. There are hoardings everywhere announcing the city as the 2008 Games' other hosts.

The army of helpers with their colourful macs and wellies have permanent smiles on their rain soaked faces and of course you can't help bumping into world famous equestrian stars like the German dressage superstar Isobel Werth who was on my bus this afternoon.

I bet that's the first time she's had to catch a bus for a while!

On Thursday we're off to walk the cross country course. It's part of a media guided trip so I don't know if we are actually 'walking' the 5km. If so, I'd better pack my trainers!

Lizzie Greenwood-Hughes is a presenter on BBC Sportsround and Newsround, and BBC Radio 5 Live’s equestrian reporter. Our FAQs should answer any questions you have.


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  • 1. At 12:28pm on 07 Aug 2008, spidernix wrote:

    Please check out our good luck video from the village of Findon to Tina Cook riding in the three-day event category.

    http://www.vimeo.com/1463834

    Good luck Tina

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  • 2. At 3:46pm on 08 Aug 2008, neil_wp wrote:

    Firstly, I'm an owner of a top class event horse and I've been involved as both competitor and owner with eventing for over 20 years. Surely Eventing has to call it a day as an Olympic sport.

    The Olympic gold medalist in eventing this year will not have jumped higher, run further or stretched wider than any of the horse competing at Burghley in the UK at the end of August. This is an event with World class prstige stamped all over it. The horses competing at the Olympics won't be at Burghley. The horses at Burghley will not e at the Olympics. It is the horse which is making the physical efforts under the guidance of a rider. The bigger test is Burghey, NOT Beijing.

    As a sport, Eventing does very little in the way of bringing people from deprived backgrounds to the fore. The current British squad is a mixture of people from varying backgrounds but none from any where near a rags to fame on the back of ability.

    Sponsorship deals and livery fees on their yeards pay the bills and make them the highly skilled professonal riders that they are. Undeniably they are the best, or perhaps the are the their peak becase of tHe horses they ride.

    As a sport, Eventing take an enormous amount of money from the National Lottery funds which quite frankly would be better directed elsewhere.

    As a sport, Eventing takes an enormous amount of money from it's owners and riders to compete and without significant outlay, a talented horse will simply NOT progress to the top levels.

    In order for a sport or discipline to be in included on the Summer Olympics program (but not necessarily be contested at the Olympics), it must be widely practiced by men and women, in at least 75 and 50 countries, respectively, spread on four continents.

    At Beijing 24 countires out of the 114 sending teams to the Games fielded an Eventing team. None were from Africa.

    Pierre de Coubertin's
    "L'important n'est pas de gagner, mais de participer." mantra must surely have referred to the athlete's participation NOT the Sport.

    Its time the FEI, the international governing body grasped, the mettle and allowed this money centric activity to drop gracefully from the list.

    The legacy Eventing leaves cannot simply be tons of rotting organic matter which is good for the rose bushes. In the current schema, that is all we are achieving
    NWP

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