Moldova's Last-Minute Olympic Rescue Mission: Antonenco to Ride Glinka's Horses

Dressage

Moldova

With the suspension of Alisa Glinka due to a positive human doping test, the country of Moldova sees its chances for individual Olympic participation in dressage go up in smoke.

A final, last-minute rescue mission has been staged by allocating the ride on Glinka's horses to Tatiana Antonenco.

Dressage and Moldova

With the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, Moldova became independent and to date has only two dressage riders registered with the FEI: Alisa Glinka and Tatiana Antonenco.

The 36-year old Glinka, who is a mother of five and has dual citizenship in Moldova and Russia, has been a trailblazer for Moldova. She made her international show debut in 2016 at small tour level on Bel Forrest. With the Oldenburg gelding Aachen (by Ampere x Sunny Boy) she competed at the 2021 European Championships and at the 2022 and 2024 World Cup Finals, after missing out on the 2023 Finals due to visa issues. She also represented Moldova at the 2022 World Championships. Glinka keeps her horses in Germany with Rudolf Widmann.

Glinka at the 2021 European Championship

The 35-year old Antonenco is based in Belgium with her life-partner Serge Pais. Antonenco made her international debut in 2012 at the Balkan Championships in Greece. She first competed Tavares through 2019. In 2021 she began showing Helsinki and in 2023 Double Dutch joined her string. Tatiana has not yet scored a 67% in a Grand Prix on either of them.

Moldova at the 2024 Paris Olympics

In December 2023 Glinka unlocked an individual slot for Moldova by being the second place finisher for Group C on the FEI Olympic Ranking.

Her positive doping test for diuretics and masking agents at the 2024 World Cup Finals has left her suspended and her case might not be resolved in time for the Olympic nomination deadline.

Last Minute Effort by Antonenco

This leaves Antonenco until 24 June (!) to achieve two MER scores on one horse. If Antonenco fails to do so, the spot will go to Hungary.

She needs to achieve a minimum 67% attributed twice by both a L4 judge and as an average from all judges in the competition. The score must be achieved in a Grand Prix test at two different CDI3*/CDI4*/CDI5*/CDI-W/CDIO events.

She has been given the ride on Glinka's two Grand Prix horses, Aachen and Abercrombie, and is entered with them for the CDI-W Lipica on 7 - 9 June 2024.

Antonenco did not reply to questions sent by Eurodressage about her new partnership with Glinka's horses.

The last CDI competitions on the FEI calendar in Europe, where MER scores can be achieved after Lipica, will be the following weekend (13 - 16 June) Achleiten, Ypaja, Jardy, or the weekend after (20 - 23 June) in Kronberg, Rotterdam, Sopot or Brno.