Games of The XXIV Olympiad

Seoul (KOR), 17 September – 2 October 1988

Asia’s second Olympic Games

This was the second time since Tokyo in 1964 that the Games were held in Asia. Korea, a country which until the sixties was primarily an agricultural country was in a stage of transformation, going from a modified dictatorship to a true democracy. The industrialisation, dominated by huge conglomerates such as Samsung, Hyundai, Daewoo and Lucky Goldstar, gained even more speed after the Olympics.

Far reaching facilities for a country with few horses…

The equestrian facilities, he Seoul Equestrian Park at Kwachon, began to take form as early as 1983 and were completed in April 1988. It comprised both a racetrack and equestrian facilities. There were stables for 970 horses and parking for 3,500 cars. It was huge investment for a country with practically no equestrian tradition. In fact a census a few years before had shown that Korea – a country of 41 million people – had only 1,058 horses, of which 500 were racing ponies.

Jumping final misses out on the closing ceremony

As in Moscow, the individual Jumping was scheduled to take place in the Olympic stadium, with a seating capacity of 75,000, but unlike earlier Games when the final Jumping competition was held as part of the closing ceremony with only one ticket for both – the two events in Seoul were separate. The jumping competition stared at 8am and ended at 1.30pm – five and a half hours before the closing ceremony for which there were separate tickets.

Staffing the event

Permanent staff       1,300

Volunteers              28,859

Support personnel   16,044

Temporary employee 3,689

In addition there were, for the first time, 40 specialised volunteers, recruited from all over the world by the FEI and used mainly for stewarding.

All horses coming to Korea had to stay in a 21-day pre-flight quarantine. Most European horses came in two flights from Frankfurt via Moscow to Seoul: on 4 September and on 10 September. On arrival the horses stayed for 36 hours in quarantine at the equestrian park.

Key Figures (general):

• ·                159 nations
• ·                8,391 athletes (2,194 women; 6,197 men)
• ·                25 sports
• ·                27,221 volunteers
• ·                11,331 media (4,978 written press; 6,353 broadcasters)

The Games got off to a dramatic start at the Opening Ceremony when the torch was run into the stadium by 76-year-old Sohn Kee-Chung, the winner of the 1936 marathon. In 1936 Sohn had been forced to enter using a Japanese name because Korea was occupied by Japan.

Key figures (equestrian)

• ·                32 nations (Australia, Austria, Belgium, Bermuda, Brazil, Canada, Colombia, Denmark, Egypt, Finland, France, Germany, Great Britain, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Korea, Liechtenstein, Mexico, Netherland, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Puerto Rico, Russia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, USA, Venezuela, Virgin Islands)
• ·                179 entries (74 in Jumping; 54 in Dressage; 50 in Eventing)

JUMPING

For the first time qualifications were held to reduce the starting field for the individual Jumping. Of the 74 riders who took part in the first qualification, half, i.e. 37, were allowed to compete in round A of the final in the Olympic stadium. Twenty-one returned for round B. Only three of the four riders per country were allowed in the final.

Olaf Petersen was the course designer. With the generous financial help of SLOOC he designed a beautiful set of obstacles, all referring to the history, traditions and pageantry of Korea.

The team competition was held at the equestrian centre in Kwachon. The course measured 770m. The verticals were up to 1.60m, the largest oxer was 2.00m wide and the water jump measured 4.60m.

The first German to go in the team competition was Ludger Beerbaum who, after his Landlord went lame, got, on short notice, the ride on Hafemeister’s second horse, The Freak, formerly ridden by Hugo Simon. His clear round with a quarter time fault set Germany on the road to gold. In the second round, Germany’s last rider, Franke Sloothaak, clear in the first round, did not have to go again. Germany won with 17.25 points over the USA with 20.5 and France with 27.5.

The individual Jumping final was held in the huge Olympic Stadium on closing day, but not on the same ticket for the closing ceremony, thus attracting a small crowd for the 75,000 seats available. At 8am, when the first horses entered the arena, there were around 200 spectators present, some hours later, during the jump-off, there were probably 10,000.

For the reigning European champions, Pierre Durand and the 13-year-old black gelding Jappeloup, they added Olympic gold to their winnings.  

DRESSAGE

Fifty-three riders from 18 nations competed, 10 with full teams of four and one with three. It was the first time ever that four riders per country were allowed, though only three could go forward to the Special. Since Los Angeles four years previously the Grand Prix had been shortened to 7 minutes, which gave increased weighting to the piaffe and passage.

The Grand Prix became a showdown between the elegance that had been represented a few years previously by Marzog, now by Rembrandt and the heavier type, of which Granat was a prime example and now Corlandus, the current European champion. The elegant “dancer”, Nicole Uphoff’s Rembrandt, won over Margit Ott-Crepin’s Corlandus, while third place went to a “working horse”, Christine Stückelbergers’ Gauguin de Lully. A pleasant surprise was, in 10^th place, the young Korean Jung-Kyun Suh on Klimke’s former horse Pascal.

Not deemed supernatural… the competition was slightly disturbed by a wandering shadow from the roof of the Grand Stand. It affected at least six horses; probably the most to suffer was Monica Theodorescu, third in the Grand Prix, but only sixth in the Special.

EVENTING

For only for the second time in the 76-year history of eventing at the Olympic Games the defending champions repeated their victory of four years earlier; Mark Todd, 32 years old, with the 16-year-old New Zealand bred Charisma.

After dressage, Mark Todd was already in the lead, ahead of Claus Erhorn, Virgina Leng and Thies Kaspreit. The test was the same as the one that had been used since 1976. It lasted 7 ½ minutes and comprised 20 individual marks and 4 collective marks. Wondang, 43km or 1hour drive north of Kwachon, was hilly terrain where the horses often had to gallop on slopes. After the course walk, six of the obstacles on Hugh Thomas’ cross-country course had to be lowered and the first element of No.27 was removed. The four phases measured a total of 26,761 meters.

Germany, whose four riders all went clear over the cross-country fences, was safely in the lead for the team gold medal, ahead of New Zealand and Great Britain.

The jumping phase saw only one change in the medal positions. New Zealand, with only three riders, lost silver to Great Britain after five knock-downs by Andrew Bennie on Grayshott. Germany won gold. There were 10 clear rounds by the 36 remaining starters, while Todd, Stark and Leng stayed in their individual medal positions.