Verona Rolex FEI World Cup, opens today
Jumping Verona opens today as part of the 112th running of Fieracavalli, Italian's most important event dedicated to the world of horses and equestrian culture.
The show will include the tenth running of Italy's qualifying round of the Rolex FEI World Cup™, the most prestigious annual competition in the sport of show jumping. Lining up to take part in this will be 44 riders and 120 horses representing 20 countries: Argentina, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Denmark, Spain, Finland, France, Great Britain, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, United States, Switzerland, Sweden, Ukraine.
As always the starting list of Jumping Verona includes many athletes from the top of the Rolex rankings list; nine of the current top fourteen are competing this weekend. Headed by the current world number 1, the Frenchman Kevin Staut, followed by Sweden's Rolf-Goran Bengtsson (No. 5) and Germany's Ludger Beerbaum (No. 7) and Marco Kutscher (No. 8). The best three lady riders currently ranked are also here; the Australian Edwina Alexander (No. 9), Ireland's Jessica Kuerten (No. 10) and Penelope Leprevost (No. 11) from France. Also competing and ranked in the top 20 are Switzerland's Steve Guerdat (No. 12), Billy Twomey from Ireland(No. 14) and Dutchman Albert Zoer (No. 18), the only rider to twice win the Grand Prix of Jumping Verona, and of course Luciana Diniz, from Portugal.
Another former champion riding in this great show is former World and Olympic gold medallist Rodrigo Pessoa (No. 21). For Italy, the Federation has summoned to seven riders: Natale Chiaudani, Gianni Govoni, Juan Carlos Garcia, Emilio Bicocchi, Emanuele Fiorelli, Emanuele finess Goodman, and Paul Zuvadelli. The Italian Federation's national two wild cards are assigned to Jonella Ligresti, and Paolo Pomponi. Also invited are Brazilian Bernardo Alves and Germany's double Olympic gold winner from Atlanta 1996, Uli Kirchoff. Another name to look out for is Jeroen Dubbledam from the Netherlands who is bringing his top horse BMC van Grunsven Simon, recent winner of the CN Grand Prix, at Spruce Meadows in Canada, one of the richest prizes in show jumping.
Jumping Verona is now rated a CSI-W *****, which means that, since last year, the show has gain the highest ranking possible in the sport. This means more competitions with spectacular technical difficulty; eight in total over the weekend. The total prize pool of Euro 350,000, includes Euro 145,000 of “loot” for the Grand Prix Rolex FEI World Cup™ Qualifier on Sunday.
Other numbers of interest are:
• 103 staff are responsible for
organising Jumping Verona.
• 150 boxes have been set up to host the real protagonists of the event, horses, and are sited around the field race (Hall 7/B)
• 4046 seats around the arena are available to the public
• 24 obstacles were made by children of the community of San Patrignano for the last three years the partner of Jumping Verona. They will be used to construct courses designed by Rolf Luedi.
• There are over 600 trade stands.
Jumping-Verona is part of Fieracavalli, the Verona Festival of the Horse, which offers a full supporting programme of exhibitions and displays.