It was a beautiful scene when all the nations walked over the green field at the Oliva Nova Riding Center for the opening ceremony of the 2016 European Children, Junior and Young Riders Championships, which take place in Oliva Nova, Spain, from 20 - 24 July 2016. Everybody was cheering and applauding the young riders as they waved their countries' flags, all dressed up in their uniforms.
All is ready at Oliva Nova for the start of the European Children, Junior and Young Riders Championship 2016, the first time held in Spain. The teams of all participating countries have already arrived at Oliva Nova. Germany, Holland, Great Britain, Italy, Spain, Belgium, Switzerland and Norway, are just some of the countries that will be competing in Valencia and fighting for the medals.
All 155 combinations from 23 nations passed the vet-check in the morning with no problems and with everything going smoothly. The vet-check was conducted by the FEI vet Vicente Jordà and judges Juan Carlos Campos and Katrina Wüst. With the vet-check now complete, the European Competition has officially started.
This morning the show kicked off with the first part of the Junior Team tests at 08.00 hours and Young Riders Team. At 18.00 hours the competition will resume with the Children Preliminary B test.
Number of participants
The new "Children" category was launched in 2014. In this year's edition, we have 23 participants aged between 12 and 14 years. The category with the most participants is Juniors with 70 combinations (the riders are between 14 and 18 years old). In Young Riders (riders between 16 and 21 years old), there are 62 combinations. In total during the European Children, Junior and Young Riders Championship there will be 147 combinations competing in the arena. In addition, a curious fact: who would imagine that a 90% of the 211 combinations listed for the event are young women, 190 of the riders are women and only 21 are men.
The most prestigious and experienced Ground Jury
The best riders, of course, deserve the best and more experienced judges in the world. They will come from 11 nations. The FEI 5* judges are German judge Katrina Wust, Danish judge Hans-Christian Matthiesen, Dutch judge Francis Verbeek)von Rooy and Italian judge Vincenzo Truppa, all of them with an important curriculum judging young riders. The same as Spanish FEI 4* judges, Juan Carlos Campos Escribano and Paco Guerra and the other internationals as Luxembourgian jugde Christoph Umbach, Finish judge Tiina Karkkolainen, British judge Clive Halsall, Danish judge Kurt Christensen, Russian judge Alla Soubbotina, German judge Elke Ebert, Dutch judge Adriaan Hamoen, Belgian judge Freddy Leyman and French judge Raphaël Saleh.
Schedules are adapted to the climate conditions
The weather forecast has predicted rising temperatures up to maximum around 32ºC. The competition times have been scheduled to avoid the warmest hours of the day. The riders will be competing simultaneously in two arenas in two blocs: from 08:00 am until 13:30 pm and from 18.00 h until 21.00 h.
The event begun with the vet-check on Tuesday 19th July. On Wednesday, the competition will start with the first part of Juniors Team, Young Riders Team, and Children Preliminary B tests. On Sunday 24 July, the European Children, Junior and Young Rider Championship will finish at Oliva Nova with the Freestyles in all three categories.
Live streaming in www.topiberian.com
Text by Katharina Braren - Photo © Digishots
Related Link
Eurodressage coverage of the 2016 European Children, Junior and Young Riders Championships
