Equestrian and Overcoming “Heat” Equestrian Yoshiaki Oiwa The Challenges Seen at the Test Competition August 16th 12:19
An equestrian test tournament for next year's Tokyo Olympics was held in Tokyo this month. Equestrian is the only Olympic competition dealing with animals. For Yoshiaki Oiwa who is aiming for four consecutive Olympics, this test tournament was a valuable opportunity to experience the heat of Tokyo with his horse.
The Olympic equestrian competition is "Equestrian Equestrian", where you compete for less time and less time to clear obstacles. “Baba Equestrian” which scores the accuracy and beauty of performances such as steps. The third type of “Comprehensive Equestrian”, where cross country is added to both obstacles and Baba, will be held.
Of these, the cross-country of general equestrians competes in the Tokyo Olympics to see if there are about 40 obstacles on a course of about 6 km, and that they can be cleared without mistakes or run within the specified time.
The speed of a horse riding in speed while clearing obstacles is impressive. It is very popular in Europe.
Yoshiaki Oiwa, 43 years old, participated in the test tournament.
As a representative of Japan, he has participated in the Olympic Games for three consecutive times, and the world ranking is 15th in the top of Japanese players.
Usually, Oiwa is living in Europe.
For the next year's Tokyo Olympics, where heat is a concern, we went to the test tournament to actually feel “climate effects” and “how the horses were tired”.
At the test tournament, obstacles such as logs and ponds piled up over 1 meter high were set up on a course of 3 km, which is about half of the production.
Mr. Oiwa was thinking about trying to make an “attack course” with less time loss even in the heat.
As a guideline, two obstacles are set in the middle of the box.
Oiwa wanted to clear the two obstacles on a straight course, but just before he felt a change in the horse, he changed the course.
(Photo: Oiwa on the left and overseas players on the right)
The overseas runner's run-up between obstacles was one step, but Oiwa took two steps because of the angle. I had to spend time to avoid failure.
The temperature of this day is over 30 degrees. Humidity is high, and Oiwa's horse is said to be in poor health.
After the competition, Mr. Oiwa looked back, "I changed the strategy because the horse was in a different condition than usual," and "I thought it was unresponsive, but I didn't think it was so bad." And I felt the severe heat of Tokyo.
Mr. Oiwa said, “I think there are various possibilities because I can consider bringing a horse to Japan for training.
“I want to create such a situation that I will compete for the medal to the end and sneak up on the TV.