Palestine Loses Olympic Spot, Korea Gets Starting Place Last Minute

Dressage

Korea

Palestine has lost its individual slot in dressage at the 2024 Olympic Games as no rider was able to fulfil the Minimum Eligibility Requirement (MER).

The vacant slot in Group F ended up being reallocated to Korea.

Group F

At the end of 2023 Group F (Africa and the Middle East) obtained two individual starting places. Morocco thanks to the efforts of Dutch based Yessin Rahmouni on All at Once and Palestine thanks to Russian born Diana al Shaer on Unazalee de Massa.

In 2024 the national federations of those countries needed to allocate the spot to one of their qualified rider if s/he fulfilled the FEI's MER.

Rahmouni had those in the bag for Morocco, but a fall off a horse in March put him in a very precarious situation and to date it is still not know if the rider will be totally fit to compete. After five weeks of flat rest in a brace, Rahmouni slowly got back on his feet and has been sitting on his horse again.

Palestine's Diana al Shaer, who is based at Van Olst Horses in The Netherlands, is Palestine’s only active GP rider. She competed her 16-year old mare Unazalee de Masa at four CDI's in two months time: Tolbert, Exloo, Jardy and Brno but did not achieve the required 67% minimum twice.

Reallocation of Slot

Palestine was unable to fill the slot. The reserve countries in Group F - South Africa and Qatar - do have not a single international Grand Prix combination qualified.

Palestine's open slot was allocated to the country of the highest ranked rider on the FEI Olympic Ranking (of 2023), not already qualified, and that is Korea.

Korea currently has only one Grand Prix rider that has achieved his MER this season: Young Shik Hwang. Former Korean Olympian (2016, 2021) Dong Seon Kim quit high performance sport in 2023 and Hyun Woo Do (Duisenberg) did not score high enough.

Young Shik Hwang

Korean Young-Shik Hwang is the 2010 and 2014 Asian Games double gold medal winner. He was coached by Chang-Moo Shin in 2010 and in preparation of the 2014 Games he sought guidance from Martin Schaudt in Germany.

In 2019 he obtained the individual rider slot for Korea for the 2021 Olympic Games in Tokyo aboard Martin Schaudt's Despino, but a break-up between trainer and rider followed. Hwang moved to Munster to Jörg Jacobs's yard and bought Bluebarry Dream as his Tokyo hopeful but the pair was not ready on time and Dong Seon Kim ended up riding in Tokyo instead.

At the start of 2022 Hwang moved to Hof Kasselmann where he trained and competed some of the Kasselmann horses. For his Paris Olympic dream he purchased the Hanoverian bred Facility (by Furstenball x Diamond Hit) and the Oldenburg gelding Delmonte (by Destano x Argentinus). Unfortunately in November 2022 Bluebarry Dream died of colic.

Hwang and Delmonte competed extensively through 2023 with CDI starts in Stadl Paura, Hagen, Redefin, Wiesbaden, Aachen, Kronberg, Ermelo, Lyin, Kronenberg and Frankfurt. He scored in the upper sixties-low seventies with that horse.

Olympic Dream Rekindled

As Korea did not immediately qualify for the Olympics, Hwang ended his Euro-tour in April 2024 after having competed Delmonte the last time at the CDI Hagen (68.022% in the Grand Prix).

The rider moved back to Korea, but kept Delmonte in training in Germany with Michelle Hagman.

The news arrived this week that Korea received the individual starting place for the 2024 Olympics and Hwang is the only possible rider to step in.

"I'm going to Paris," Hwang told Eurodressage. "We will do our best to prepare for the Paris Olympics. I'm leaving next week."

When asked if the Olympics came as a surprise, Hwang replied, "I kind of expected it, but wasn't sure. But now I am very happy because I have a great opportunity. I am very happy with the results of our hard work."