We all remember the final of last season in Saumur: nice venue to watch a beautiful show at night, efficient organization, happy vaulters ending their winter season at the top. It seemed like a successful combination, but we all discovered that this format can be jeopardized quite easily. The season 2019-2020 will be be quite poor in content as the FEI World Cup™ Vaulting Series were simply cancelled. The 17th of October 2019, National Federations received an official notification from the FEI with a short explanation.
What happened exactly? Vaulting World asked the FEI a few questions to understand the ins and outs.
We understood that the FEI Vaulting World Cup™ was cancelled because there was no organizer for the final in Las Vegas, can you tell us more about this?
“It is correct that the FEI approached the Las Vegas organizer at the beginning of 2019 to promote the World Cup Final, but the organizer has never submitted a formal bid. The organizer was interested in the project but did not want to add Vaulting for the 2020 finals to focus on Jumping and Dressage. Unfortunately, with only two qualification legs and no final, we cannot conduct this series according to the rules, but we will examine the format with the Vaulting Committee in order to find a format that is attractive to athletes and organizers.“
Will this new format be completely different or is it an adaptation of what we already know?
“This is still to be defined with the Vaulting Committee and we will request the contribution of Athletes, coaches, Officials and Organizers.”
Is the idea to have a circuit similar to the other disciplines or to move away from it and to think of it differently?
“Las Vegas has never counted three disciplines formally, and we want to create an attractive format for Athletes, Organizers and the public.”
When will you disclose this new format of FEI Vaulting World Cup™?
“As soon as it is defined.”
There has been a lot of criticism from European athletes regarding the Las Vegas final because of the distance. Did this affect your decision?
“As already mentioned, the final was not scheduled for Las Vegas. We just approached the Organizing Committee to ask them if it was possible.”
FEI – Fédération Équestre Internationale
We can just hope this cancellation is a blessing in disguise for our sport: Vaulting is growing very fast and this is definitely an opportunity to think about a format that matches the involved entities needs completely.
