I know I said I would be GDF blogging on Low-Down, but since my ‘conversation’ with Trond (aka Smartie) started here, I decided that for continunity’s sake I would wrap this up here (at least until the FEI GA next week, where I will be sure to have at least one chat with the FEI Dressage Director).
When I arrived at the Academy Bartels yesterday, quite literally the first person I bumped into was Trond, who was chatting with Joep Bartels. After hand shakes, I was subjected to some firm but polite chastisement for my oversight in reading the proposed Olympic qualifications, and inaccurate rendering of the facts on ‘The Punitive Games’ post. To be honest, I deserved it. Trond told me in so many words that he expected more of a journalist like myself, that I would have taken the time to read a document end-to-end before throwing any stones. And he’s right. But, like dressage judges, even muck rakers are human, and as I said in my post of Saturday (which I was told by the FEI media dept. did not qualify as per FEI policy as a ‘real’ correction), we all have to own up to a mistake here and there.
But back to yesterday at the GDF. As you might have predicted I did raise my hand when Trond finished his presentation, and as you might also have predicted, my question was about the Olympic qualifications. Trond had already given plenty of clarification on the details of the actual changes (both in his response to me on EuroDressage and in his presentation), but there remained one question that had stubbornly remained unanswered, by anyone in the FEI, in any discipline. So I asked it: how does the FEI rationalize the reduction of one guaranteed spot for the Americas? They have always claimed that it’s so that there wouldn’t be ‘too many’ teams from the Americas, but as this kind of ‘adjustment’ is unprecedented just saying it is so is not an explanation, at least not in my book. There are those would argue that the very fact that the next Olympics are in the Americas should encourage GREATER participation from the region, not stifling it through egregious changes to the qualifications. As I posed my question, I said that I realized this was a subject across the Olympic disciplines, not just dressage, and that I was asking not for Trond’s personal opinion but the FEI’s position. What I was trying to convey was that I was not ‘going after’ Trond personally, but since he represents the FEI, it was to him I must direct my question. I couldn’t type his response verbatim, since I was doing my best to be an eye-contact-making, engaged recipient of his answer, but here is the gist of it:
I know I said I would be GDF blogging on Low-Down, but since my ‘conversation’ with Trond (aka Smartie) started here, I decided that for continunity’s sake I would wrap this up here (at least until the FEI GA next week, where I will be sure to have at least one chat with the FEI Dressage Director).
When I arrived at the Academy Bartels yesterday, quite literally the first person I bumped into was Trond, who was chatting with Joep Bartels. After hand shakes, I was subjected to some firm but polite chastisement for my oversight in reading the proposed Olympic qualifications, and inaccurate rendering of the facts on ‘The Punitive Games’ post. To be honest, I deserved it. Trond told me in so many words that he expected more of a journalist like myself, that I would have taken the time to read a document end-to-end before throwing any stones. And he’s right. But, like dressage judges, even muck rakers are human, and as I said in my post of Saturday (which I was told by the FEI media dept. did not qualify as per FEI policy as a ‘real’ correction), we all have to own up to a mistake here and there.
But back to yesterday at the GDF. As you might have predicted I did raise my hand when Trond finished his presentation, and as you might also have predicted, my question was about the Olympic qualifications. Trond had already given plenty of clarification on the details of the actual changes (both in his response to me on EuroDressage and in his presentation), but there remained one question that had stubbornly remained unanswered, by anyone in the FEI, in any discipline. So I asked it: how does the FEI rationalize the reduction of one guaranteed spot for the Americas? They have always claimed that it’s so that there wouldn’t be ‘too many’ teams from the Americas, but as this kind of ‘adjustment’ is unprecedented just saying it is so is not an explanation, at least not in my book. There are those would argue that the very fact that the next Olympics are in the Americas should encourage GREATER participation from the region, not stifling it through egregious changes to the qualifications. As I posed my question, I said that I realized this was a subject across the Olympic disciplines, not just dressage, and that I was asking not for Trond’s personal opinion but the FEI’s position. What I was trying to convey was that I was not ‘going after’ Trond personally, but since he represents the FEI, it was to him I must direct my question. I couldn’t type his response verbatim, since I was doing my best to be an eye-contact-making, engaged recipient of his answer, but here is the gist of it:
