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A man with binoculars looks out from the balcony of his house to watch dressage exercises on the silica sand of the Tokyo Equestrian Park.
He lives on the ninth floor of a block of buildings and is lucky that the stadium bleachers are not very high and narrowly obscure his view.
If your downstairs neighbor were to look out, they would only see a piece of wall.
The guy in ninth is the only spectator in the team dressage final.
The only one, at least, who is not part of the staff of the riders, among which are stable boys, veterinarians and blacksmiths.
In addition to the accredited press and some members of the equestrian federations of the competing countries.
"The facilities are extraordinary. The pity is that the stands are empty because in this park the spectacle with people would be beautiful," says
Venancio García Oviés
, who has been general secretary of the Spanish Equestrian Federation for 27 years.
One of the most entertaining things about dressage exercises for those of us who do not understand horse riding, is not in the arena with the horse-rider binomial, but in the markers, when the names of the horses appear.
That of the Catalan rider
Beatriz Ferrer-Salat
, for example, is called Elegance, the son of a stallion named Negro.
Portuguese horseman
Rodrigo Torres
rides one named Fogoso.
And the Dutch
Hans Peter Minderhoud
named his Dream Boy.
Another of the entertaining things about these tests comes from the public address system.
Because with the first rider of the American team the song of
Beauty and the Beast
has sounded on the
piano.
Later, with the Danish one of the classic
Tarzan
themes has arrived
.
We continue with
Aladdin
,
Mulan
...
Disney to power.
Although the Japanese have also put curious soundtracks such as a battle from the movie
Asterix and Obelix against Caesar
, and some melodies by ABBA and Queens.
On the sand were the eight best teams in search of a medal. But the result, in this case, is the least because the judges have not valued the Spanish team with enough points to qualify for the podium. And these lines are being published in a Spanish newspaper. So
the important thing in this story is the horses.
Because there has been a lot of talk that the pandemic and the strict controls in Tokyo have pushed athletes to do a gymkhana until they reach their bubble of the Olympic Games. But little has been said about the journey of the other athletes, the four-legged ones.
They landed at Haneda airport after spending ten days in quarantine in a hotel for horses at Liege airport,
plus another 60 days of health surveillance
in the countries where they train.
They even did a PCR like human athletes: a nasal swab with a 13-centimeter probe to verify that they were free of another virus, that of herpes.
The flights of the horses
The first aircraft with Olympic horses left Liège on July 15 and made a stopover in Dubai, where the animals were loaded onto an Emirates SkyCargo Boeing 777-F, the most environmentally friendly freighter in circulation. Equine passengers flew the flags of several European countries such as Germany, the Netherlands or Portugal. Each horse, which weighs between 500 and 630 kilos, traveled in pairs, as if they were in business class,
on a flight at 16 degrees Celsius
, accompanied by their groom and veterinarians.
The stallions were in the front of the cargo holds.
The mares, in the rear.
In total there were 36 on board who enjoyed an open bar of hay snacks.
Each one needed 40 liters of water during the 18 hours of the flight.
The plane was loaded with 1,300 kilos of horse equipment (saddles, blankets, grooming kits, wheelbarrows and the like), as well as 12,000 kilos of food.
On that trip was the most famous mare in the world, the best in dressage, Bella Rose 2, who competes with the veteran German rider
Isabell Werth
, the most awarded Olympic equestrian athlete of all time.
This is Werth's sixth appearance at an Olympic Games.
And unsurprisingly,
his team has won gold.
In total, 325 horses have crossed half the world in 19
flying stables
to reach their appointments with dominance and competitive jumping in Tokyo. According to the International Equestrian Federation, 247 horses will be in action at these Olympic Games, while at the Paralympics, which only has one dressage event, 78 will compete.
Once in Japan, after passing a customs control where their passport was stamped - yes, they also have a passport that indicates the birthplace of origin and the registration of flu and tetanus vaccines - it took
180 trips by truck
to transport the horses to their particular Olympic village in the Setagaya Equestrian Park, a huge complex of 180,000 square meters that already hosted the first Olympic Games in Tokyo in 1964.
As night falls and the headlights come on at the dressage final, mosquitoes make their appearance.
The one that has never left is the public, represented only by the neighbor of the ninth.
Keep up your binoculars.
According to the criteria of The Trust Project
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