A young, relatively inexperienced U.S. team will compete in Abu Dhabi, the first of four new League of Nations competitions leading up to the final in Barcelona in October.
Robert Ridland (Photo by Shannon Brinkman)The League of Nations replaces the former Nations Cup competitions that led up to the Barcelona championship, and, in this new format, the top10 ranked countries in the world will vie to be one of the eight qualified for Barcelona.
Team USA will include Alise Oken of Charlotte, N.C., Callie Schott of Lexington, Ky/, Hannah Selleck of Westlake Village, Calif. and Aaron Vale of Williston, Fla., and it will compete against very strong teams from Sweden, Belgium, The Netherlands, Great Britain, Switzerland, Germany, France and Ireland as well as the home team from Abu Dhabi.
"The other countries will send strong teams, and we expected that," said chef d'equipe Robert Ridland, pointing out that there are no major competitions in Europe during the winter while in this country there are major circuits in Wellington and Ocala in Florida and Thermal in California.
"Despite that, I like our chances,"said Ridland. "Aaron is a very good rider and he has a super horse. Hannah had a very good circuit at Spruce Meadows. Alise competed on some of our Nations Cup teams last summer. Callie spent nearly five years as assistant rider for Beezie Madden and will be riding a horse Beezie used to show."
"It's an interesting team and a nice group considering all that's going on in this country," Ridland said. "It's a huge sacrifice for the riders and the owners. They're putting their horses out of competition for a month during major circuits. I'm grateful to them. This will be a competitive team."
THE HORSES will fly to Europe during the last week of January, stay in Europe two or three days and then get on the charter flight to Abu Dhabi along with the European horses, arriving in Abu Dhabi on Feb. 3.
The competition in Abu Dhabi begins with the jog on Feb. 8 and the Nations Cup will be on Feb. 11.
The Grand Prix will be on Friday, Feb. 9 and can be seen here live streamed on ClipMyHorse at 10 a.m. Eastern time, and the Nations Cup will be on Sunday, Feb. 11 with the first round at 4:30 a.m. and running until 1:30 p.m. Eastern time.
In the first round, four riders from each nation will compete with the best three scores to count, but in the second round only the best eight nations at the end of the first round return to jump the same course in round two, but with just three riders instead of four so any mistakes will prove very costly.
After Abu Dhabi the action will move to Ocala, Fla., in March and then to St Gallen, Switzerland and Rotterdam, Netherlands in June before concluding with the big Final in Barcelona, Spain in October where the best eight teams will battle it out for the inaugural title.
The opening leg looks set to be a mighty clash of champions.
The teams in the first round will go in reverse order of their world ranking based on points accumulated by their top six athletes including one U25 athlete.
Abu Dhabi, not competing for qualification for Barcelona, will go first, followed by Brazil, Sweden, Belgium, The Netherlands, Great Britain, Switzerland, Germany, France, the USA and Ireland.
In case of a draw at the end of the second round there will be a jump-off with just one rider representing each team.
The opening leg has attracted a star-studded line-up, with the reigning Olympic champions from Sweden sending out the fabulous foursome of Henrik von Eckermann, Wilma Hellström, Peder Fredricson and Rolf-Göran Bengtsson, who are likely to be the ones to beat.
The Swedes have been a force to be reckoned with for a long time now, clinching team gold at the delayed Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games in 2021, at the FEI World Championship in 2022 and once more at the European Championship in 2023.
Fredricson helped clinch that Tokyo team title in a thrilling jump-off, while von Eckermann went on to add individual gold to the team title at the FEI World Championships in Herning, Denamar in 2022, and has been leading the individual world rankings for much of the time since then.
Bengtsson is a five-time Olympian and former European gold medalist and Hellström has been a rock-solid member of the Swedish side for some time now.
Team Brazil are also on something of a roll, having picked up a qualifying spot for the Paris 2024 Olympic Games at the Nations Cup Final 2023 last October and team bronze at the Pan American Games 2023 in Chile a few weeks later.
Former Portuguese team member, Luciana Diniz, returned to ride under the Brazilian flag at last year’s Barcelona Final, and she will compete in Abu Dhabi along with Marlon Zanotelli, Yuri Mansur and Luiz Felipe de Azevedo Filho.
Belgium will be represented by the experienced side of Tokyo team bronze medalist Gregory Wathelet, Koen Vereecke, Abdel Saïd and Wilm Vermeir while France sends Olympic and European champions Kevin Staut and Roger Yves Bost, Olivier Robert and Olivier Perreau.
For Great Britain, there will be Skye Higgin, Joseph Stockdale and Donald and Jack Whitaker while Germany, winners of the 2023 Nations Cup title, field double Olympic team bronze medalist and former European and World Cup champion Christian Ahlmann, Jörne Sprehe and 2021 European team silver medalists David Will and Christian Kukuk.
The Irish side will include Michael Pender, Richard Howley, Mark McAuley and Denis Lynch.
For the Netherlands, Kim Emmen, Loewie Joppen and Leopold van Asten will be backed up by World gold and Olympic silver medalist Jur Vrieling, while Janika Sprunger and Barbara Schnieper will join 2021 European team gold medalist Elian Baumann and double-Olympian Pius Schwizer in the Swiss side.
For Abu Dhabi, the team consists of Abdullah Mohd Al Marri, Omar Abdul Aziz Al Marzooqi, Abdullah Humaid Al Muhairi and Ali Hamad Al Kirbi.
With €700,000 in prize money at each qualifier and €1,600,000 on offer at the Final along with a range of extra bonus payments and of course the honor and prestige that goes with the taking of the very first League of Nations title, it’s all to play for.
